Month: May 2018 (Page 1 of 2)

Leningrad: The10th Mech continues to drive into the Finnish flank and cadres another 5-6.

Moscow; The free mech forces fall back to the Moscow Defence line and are replaced by a thin screen of units designed to slow the advance. Trapped mech exfiltrates back into supply.

Smolensk: The trapped units coalesce into the remaining forts and cities to form islands of resistance or fall back East.  Where they can the retreating units surround the panzers to fragment the German encirclement. A line forms from a fort in the river bend south of Orsha to the wood/swaps East of Smolensk from fleeing remnants to attempt to block further forces from the German’s Moscow drive moving south.

Kiev: Trapped mech with infantry from outside the pocket attempt a breakout by counter attacking a 6-10/Stug stack but are repulsed.  Other forces flee east and south.  The powerful mech force inside the Kiev pocket and supplied by the air-bridge from Kharkov attacks a 8-6 infantry division but only achieves a retreat.  A 7-4-8 Tank advances to interdict the German supply line to the south of the city.

Odessa; The pocket is supplied by sea.  Forces along the lower Dnieper eliminate the lone 2-10 luft AA to the south of the river and reform the line trapping the Panzer unit threatening the Crimea.

Interior; The MLR is increasingly manned and fortified. It runs complete from Narva to Moscow except for a couple of open hexes in the Valdai then south to Kursk. Here the line ends and there is a wide gap to Dnepropetrovsk except for Kharkov and a manned hex either side. From Dnepropetrovsk the line follows the river to the coast.

Berlin Radio Aug 12^th 1941. 6.00 p.m.

Good news from the front!: Forces from Army Group Centre and Army group South shook hands today 40 miles West of Bryansk trapping 100,000 enemy men and their equipment Elsewhere Kiev is all but taken and Vitebsk, Orsha, Smolensk and Poltava are liberated from the Bolsheviks. Our Finish allies have reached the Moscow/Murmansk rail line and our Rumanian friends are taking the city of Odessa even as we speak!

 The war will be over by Christmas and our boys will be re-united with their loved ones!

SE AAR 01 – 1941 AUG II – Axis Combat Phase

Finland: The Fins are forced to reinforce the right flank of their drive East due to the threat from the Soviet 10^th Mech and the Finish armour battalion is swapped to that side, a lone division however escapes the soviet recon patrols and moves to interdict the Moscow/ Murmask rail line. Together these moves and the more organized Soviet line precludes any attack this turn.

AGN/AGC:  Panzers, motorised divisions and support troops decide to take on the Soviet armoured line and eliminate a Tank/Mech stack. They exploit to encircle the left of the soviet blocking forces. The liberated 7^th panzer and the forces helping it breakout join to take Smolensk and advance in the mech phase to the Rhzev region blocking the road to Bryansk. Infantry is now reaching the front in strength and take the fortified cuties of Vitebsk and Orsha (but 2 Divisions are cadred as a result).

SE AAR 01 – 1941 AUG II – Axis Combat Phase

AGS The panzers encircling Kiev maintain momentum and storm the Poltava defence line in strength. Crossing the river a 50 mile hole is blown in the soviet defence and forces pour through, A 40 point stack formed in the advance overruns Poltava!! and spreads out beyond. Exploiting Panzer and mech forces approach 30 miles of Kharkov but most swing north to enclcle the mechanised elements of the Soviet line. A much smaller force drives north from the Kiev bridgehead and occupies a position on the Gomel/Bryansk rail line. The result is that the remainder of the soviet line from Mogilev to Kiev is out of supply.

11^th Army. A single Panzer has been transferred to 11^th army from AGS and this supports existing Mech forces to breach the lower Dnieper and exploits to cut off the Crimea.

SE AAR 01 – 1941 AUG II – Axis Exploitation Phase

The Rumanians suffer the first major Axis defeat as a 3 hex attack on the Odessa Defence line is repulsed (AR)

As a result of all these actions and including the isolated units in Kiev and Odessa

64 Divisions and 39 support troops are out of supply.

Losses this turn; Soviet Isolated: 79, Non Isolated: 41 German 11.

The Soviet concentrate on preserving their remaining mechanized force and holding the panzers back as best they can to buy time to reinforce and fortify the Moscow defence line. Which sporadically runs south to Kharkov and then to Poltava and the coast.

SE AAR 01 – 1941 AUG I – Overview

Finland: Fresh infantry divisions take up the position of the 10 Mech at Vipurii. The corps transits across the Soviet defensive line and crashes into the Fins holding the flank of their Eastward drive cadreing a 5-6 infantry division.

Leningrad:  Patrols notice a thickening of the German line and advances into north Estonia but take no action other than strengthen the line. More troops are rushed to the Valdai to block any German advance from that direction. Survivors from the line at Veliki Luki pull back into the swamps.

Smolensk. The strong tank/mech force forgoes the temptation of counter attack for fear of being pinned and surrounded. The lessons of Kiev have been learned. Infantry occupy swaps and forests and strong tank/mech stacks bar the open spaces between. The supply line to  Vitebsk is re-opened.

Bialystok Pocket: Starvation eliminates 3 mech/Lt tk cadres.

Kiev; Forces contract into the city and adjacent forts and await the inevitable assault. A maximum effort airlift gets 8REs of supplies into the city. Kiev is declared a Hero city as  NKVD political troops rally the defence.

Rumanian Border:  A propaganda victory is achieved when a surrounded two division stack attacks U2 a lone Luftwaffe flak unit which had strayed too close and eliminates it.

Odessa; Two divisions seek to escape the German surrounding action while the rest fall back to the city and forts to defend the cordon. Ships from Sevastopol ferry supplies to the garrison.

Losses Soviet Isolated 9, Finnish 3, German 2.

Svetlana chatted to her neighbour in the 200 yard queue for the bakers. Rumours were that the baker had received a flour delivery last night so she had been there since dawn, but the line had not moved.. Supplied had been difficult to get lately and she missed her husband’s helping hand. Her last view of him was marching East with the rest of the hastily formed Militia regiment. They had gone to secure supplies . He had turned to wave, recognisable in the mass by the limp he had acquired the previous time the Mother Country had been invaded from the West. That was the last Svetlana or anyone else had seen or heard of the regiment.

She glanced up curiously as the heard a rumble of thunder and the skies darkened slightly. Her bunion had not indicated rain today. Seconds later the bakery, the line and much of the city was shaken to the ground by the weight of shells in the largest prepared bombardment of the war.  General field artillery, heavy siege guns and massed rail based ordinance firing from over the old border rained down on the historic regional centre.  Two hours later the shaken survivors crawled from their cellars and the rubble to be met by combat and assault engineers aided by flame throwing tanks in the van of a nine division assault. Resistance was sporadic and ineffectual.

SE AAR 01 – 1941 AUG II General View

Finland: The Fins continue to press the right flank of the Soviet line facing them in the south eliminating a front line division.

AGN/AGC. The Panzers are checked by the massed ranks of Soviet armour and the isolation of  7^th Panzer.   They avoid direct confrontation instead eliminating the heroic survivors of the Veluki Luki fort line and  clearing the way for force marching infantry to close to the soviet line.  Vitebsk is  encircled but not assaulted.  Meanwhile a  panzer/motorised detachment seeks to pin the Soviet armour and re-establish contact with the 7th.

Further west the militia detachment is overrun and Minsk surrounded and taken with a massive assault which guarantees victory.

The Bialystok pocket is reduced to a one hex stack of armoured divisions and cadres.

SE AAR 01 – 1941 AUG II – Axis Combat Phase

AGS  The noose tightens around Kiev as the panzers secure more of the East bank clearing away resistance and enlarging the bridgehead. The Cherkassy crossing defence is surrounded and isolated. West of the city infantry eliminate the remainder of the  hapless outer defence ring.   SS motorized division SSLAH reaches the suburbs of Nikolayev;  isolating Odessa.

In fact most activity this turn across the whole front has been one of consolidation and clearance . Other than the lone stack at Bialystok there are no Russian forces west of the front line from the Baltic to the Rumanian border and only a few stranglers outside of the Odessa defence cordon.

SE AAR 01 – 1941 AUG II – Axis Exploitation Phase

SE AAR 01 – 1941 AUG II – Axis Exploitation Phase

Luftwaffe.  With only minimal assistance for  Attack Support the Luftwaffe intensifies the destruction of the soviet rail net.

In total the Axis launch 6 overuns, 22 guaranteed attacks (mainly against isolated remnants) and 8 diced attacks.

Losses are Soviet Unisolated 43 attack factors, Isolated 151 AFs for a total of 194.

SE AAR 01 – 1941 AUG I – Axis End of Turn

Finland: The soviets shuffle troop to cover the right flank, but do not engage the Fins.

Leningrad: The Leningrad Mech Reserve Corps moves to the Valdai to stop any German attempt to swing north. The only Mech remaining in the Leningrad area is the as yet uncommitted 10^th Mech Corps at Vipurii.

Moscow Highway: The northern shoulder of the  German breakthrough stands firm, meanwhile the Mech Units concentrated around Vitebsk swing 180⁰ and, with forces from the  Smolensk reserve  and long range bombers out of Moscow, engage the  16th panzer and cadre it, isolating the 7^th pz 30 miles inside the front line. Infantry and  artillery take up the fortified position in the  Vitebsk/Orsha area to deny the advancing Infantry passage.  The Soviets between here and Kiev hearing reports of German breakthroughs to the north and south flee east leaving token forces holding the river line and concentrated at choke points.

Kiev: With no hope of a breakout or relief from the East soviet forces at Kiev concentrate in the inner defences. However in an attempt to hinder the Axis advance the Mech concentration west of Kiev strikes north cadreing a 6-10 motorised division and eliminating support troops with it. East of the Dnieper a scratch infantry force with help from the Cherkassy Crossing defenders finds a weak spot in the ring and retreats a lone Motorised regiment establishing a tenuous supply line to the city and eastern defensive ring.

Oddessa: The line south of Kiev shatters with troops in full flight. Those that can fall back on Odessa do so to try to defend the city. Some attempt a feeble counterstroke against the 6-10 Motorised division at 2109 but are easily driven off.

Western Approaches: A lone Militia unit breaks the tenuous blockade around Minsk and briefly re-establishes supply. The Bialystok pocket still desperately tries to breakout but the 7-6 infantry division assaulted holds fast.

TOTAL losses Jul II 1941

Soviet: Unisolated 34, Isolated 79,  2 fortified area, 2 Fighter squadrons.

Axis 16 including 1xPz XX and 1x, Mot XX cadred.

Finland: The Fins take advantage of the soviet pull back and launch a limited offensive north of Lake Lagoda with an infantry corps and 3  armour battalions eliminating a 4-6 inf div and border regiment and the Soviet left frank is now completely open

AGN/AGC: Infantry force marching east and north take up the blocking positions screening Leningrad and cut off Minsk . Engineers, siege artillery and  Rail guns move into position for an August assault. The infantry  however are still 100 miles short of the soviet MLR. The Siauliai pocket is eliminated but the powerful soviet mech corps in the at Bialystok pocket are simply contained.

The combined Panzer Force strikes the Russians “second” defensive line and it is clear to the tank commanders that the easy victories of a month ago are slipping away. The three hex assault around Veliki Luki pushes one hex of the defenders out of their fortified position  but they retreat in good order, another attack is blunted with the soviets taking losses but retreating a blocking force north east, only at the southern end of the attack is success achieved where a narrow gap in the lines is made. This is sufficient however for the Panzers to pour through the breach. Motorized elements swing north cutting the escape road of the defenders reeling back from the attack and move towards the Valdai.  The main force meanwhile swings south and reaches a position interdicting the Moscow highway east  of Smolensk. Other motorised support engages the soviet MLR just north of Vitebsk  with patrols and probes to restrict their mobility.

AGS. As the early morning mist clears the trapped mech units west of Kiev receive reports from local villagers that the fascists have slipped away in the night. Their hopes are dashed however when ariel recon out of Kiev reports enemy forces have breached the Dniepr north and south of the city and trapped the defenders. With all mobile reserves trapped within this wider pocket there is little hope of relief and the defenders prepare for a bitter fight to the end.

The Germans had decided against a tank on tank engagement west of Kiev. Instead they widen the bridgehead made by 11^th Panzer and cross to the north of the city swinging south overrunning second line division and engineer regiments relieving them of their fort building duties forever.

To the south the brave but hopelessly out gunned 2^nd Mech corps is bypassed, surrounded and annihilated opening a massive 40 km breach in the line. Light motorised forces occupy Cherkassy (eliminating an I-16 squadron on the ground), Kirovograd and interdict the rail junction at 2109 to deny the Soviet forces fleeing east from 11^th army any supplies.

The main Panzer forces breach the Dnieper in the rolling hills between Kiev and Cherkassy and swinging north clamp  tight around Kiev along the east bank  Additional Panzers push out to provide a partial outer ring and send one division directly East.

In front of the city motorized support engages the besieged forces to restrict mobility and advanced infantry forces replace the panzers’ west screen.

Further west the remaining soviet pond dwellers continue to cause nuisance to secondary supply lines and the tardy progress of the engineering corps means much of the panzers have outrun their supplies.

11^th Army The majority of the Rumanians harry and reduce the large infantry force moving east from Lvov and take positions across the old Rumanian border from the soviet line south to the Black sea. Chrisinau is taken without a fight.

The Soviets have used this temporary lull in the pace to strengthen their second defence line.

Facing Finland Soviets abandon hopes of an offensive and fall back from the  border to extend the line North fearing a Finish attack around the north flank.

Facing AGN and AGC there is  little action except for frantic fort building. The line now consists of forts, forest/swamp or Tank/Mech defences along most of its length to Mogilev. The Bialystok pocket still causes some nuisance value by cadreing a 7-6 infantry division.

Against AGS however the Soviet High command  needed to make a big decision. Do they use their mechanised reserves to counter attack the panzers and try to res-establish supply to the Kiev outer ring or fall back beyond the Dnieper to act as a mobile reserve to seal any river crossings in the coming weeks.

In the event the targets of a lone panzer division and a large stack of support headed by the SS mot division persuaded them to commit and the largest tank engagement of the war to date takes place in front of Kiev.

Other than two Mech divisions which rush to seal the German bridgehead north of the  city all available motorised forces are employed in the counter attack. 8 full strength Tank and motorised divisions, 12 cadre/regiment motorised assets and 3 artillery regiments plus aircraft make two attacks to break the ring of steel.

The air covert is Returned by ME109s out of Zhitomar. Both attacks fail (4:1 -1 and 2:1 +1) achieving NE results!

Full commitment for no gain. Only the victorious 2^nd Mech Corps moving up from hitting the 11 Army last month is free to move and bar the path to Umman and the rear of the  Soviet line to Odessa..

Stalin in a range despatches NKVD commissars to stiffen the resolve and the front line cities of Minsk, Kiev and Odessa are now ideologically purified and ready to defend the motherland to the last man.

The one ray of hope to is that a lone 6-4-8 Tank division struggling back from the frontier ZOCs the main German supply line. Outside Lvov one hex of the Broad gauge rail line (advanced rule) remains un-converted so consequently German spearheads will be out of supply except where they can draw on Trucks.  SS police are sent to investigate and the commander of rail line security in the sector disappears in mysterious circumstances.

AGN The Motorised support from Riga screen Leningrad south of the lakes and the panzers move East to pincer the small  blocking force at Daugavpils meeting a panzer force moving north. The Soviet transports just escape but leave the Para infantry they had flown in to take out stranded on the runway facing annihilation.

AGC The Mech corps at Siauliai is contained and the Bialystok pocket further reduced. Advance elements pick off stragglers and assemble West of Vitebsk ready to strike in force. Minsk is screened by advance infantry forces. Moto mech recons in force into the Eastern Pripet seal the marshes and trap the few remaining soviet units.

AGS. The advance panzer force hits the right flank of the outer Kiev defensive crescent and remove it from play.  The 11^th Pz div crosses the river north of Kiev into the swamps however the bulk of the force swings south and traps the outer Kiev defensive ring by meeting the other arm of the pincer which has overrun a single 3-6 inf div near the south end of the soviet defences.   The pincers meet trapping two mech corp and a front line division plus assorted support troops.

Other forces screen the two mech corps barring the route south to Umman and attempt to trap the fleeing mass of soviet infantry.

Around Lvov a lone surviving Mech corps and mountain division is contained along the Hungarian border.

11^th Army.

The Soviet destruction of 1^st Rumanian Tank’s support has forced that unit to move north to safety so some soviets will escape. The foot soldiers continue to chip away at forts and lone infantry divisions but the strong Soviet defensive line over the river remains intact. In the far south the Rumanians are nipping at the heals of Soviets fleeing East.

Finland. The fins are experiencing a phoney war and have not yet committed, content to fortify the direct route to Helsinki while the German 7-6 from Sweden and two Panzer battalions from Army Norway move into  position.

The intention is to await developments and not get committed to a full engagement until the soviet line is weakened by transfers south or where conversely  there is a need to draw off Soviet troops when the German infantry of AGN move on Leningrad. They will in the meantime take targets of opportunity and probe north of Lake Lagoda.

Soviet Losses Unisolated  30 AFs plus 6 forts,    Isolated 78 factors plus 1 fort.

Germans Ix 8-6 reduced.

Those Soviet forces who are able fall back to the Second Line (Pskov, arch to Velujki Luki than south to Kiev) do so.  South of Kiev a large body of infantry divisions are marching East from isolated positions on the old border so the  defence line temporarily moves West here and then along the old Rumanian border to the coast.

Local screening forces are positioned in forest and marshlands around Minsk and the city itself is being defended. Stragglers remain in the Pripet moving slowly East except where they can interdict key rail lines and junctions.

Trapped soviet forces include a number of powerful Tank and Mech Corps formations  and these strike to attempt to breakout, interdict rail lines or inflict losses.

The Axis are unpleasantly surprised to encounter the large formations of T34s a tank they were till now not aware existed. These local counter attacks achieve success against a number of targets. A lone 8-6 inf div is cadres West of Kaunas and a key rail line taken. South of Lvov an entire corps of 3 light divisions is obliterated to cadres and in the far south a large stack of supporting arms of the 11^th Army is eliminated and the bold 1^St Rumanian Tank division isolated.

Only at Bialystok is the savage Soviet reprisal checked when a 3  corps strong Tank breakout attempt is foiled by one of the 8-6 infantry divisions leavened by Heavy Flak holding the ring . Even here though small units manage to exfiltrate along the north of the  marshes and re-establish supply to the previously isolated pocket.

Total Losses  Jun II 41 Soviet Non isolated 110,   Isolated 87

Axis non isolated German 44 Rumanian 4.