As I was playing Stalingrad 42, it struck me that these entrance zones for Russian reinforcements can occur behind enemy lines in the Northern edge of the map.

This posed a problem for me, as I had until now left my flank bare. With the fall of Voronezh we have sought to power deeper into Russia via a Northern route.

It would seem that historically that offense stopped at Voronezh, due possibly to this need for an extended screen.

The Rules offer no solace. There is no AGC closes this gap or that gap.. just sought it out for yourself big fella!

So I paused play for the moment and sought to see what the impact would be of bringing the August 18-16th , turns 14 and 15 reinforcements on board in Area A. West of Voronezh.
Lets use the Reserve mode feature for the Soviets too.

Then attack onto the board.
The first attack goes in at 5:1, with soviets rolling a 1 for a D2 result. They retreat and are disrupted.

The Reserve units can move 2 hexes. They advance and attack. The disrupted unit is 1/2’d on defense we earn a 4:1 attack with a 6 result yielding a D1 – a step kill.

As we can see above by early August the German focus had moved southward. Really using the Don river as an ideal defensive barrier against any ripostes by the Soviets….
Well that is not what I would have liked to have done with my strategy, this inability to lock off the Northern flank means that the historical play of Stalingrad and Grozny are your only two choices.

Now we can of course recall a panzer division for a fire brigade formation with 2-3 solid German divisions to back up these pansy arse allies, to the detriment of the offensive. Back to the planning board.