Weather Lt Mud

German Init.

9^th Army Staya Russa

9th Army plan attack near the rail head to secure supply and trace .

131st and 324th Inf Divisions press towards Peno in an attempt to encircle 4^th Pzr. Group: 1^st,7^th,19^th Pzr. Divisions & 14^th and 36^th Mot. Divisions

advance between Rzhev and Vyazma, all the forces are at the limits of their current supply.

 

The SS Division Riech and Totenkopf support. Deutschland supports SS:T

Myet Levo falls to 11^th Pzr and elements of SS:R.

A view of the Soviet Line above in North.

2^nd Pzr and 20^th move up to the outskirts of Kaluga at the edge of the Oka River. 2^nd Pzr. prepares push on towards Perenyshl on the banks of the Upa River.

57^th Pzr HQ is sited at Kozelisk.

10^th Pzr goes into Reserve mode and fuels up in readiness to move into to support the 2^nd Pzr actions.

Orel/ Bryansk (below):

2 more turns will see the Soviets finish feeding off of SP and then begin having to use Treebark or roll for Attrition.

18^th and 3^rd surround stragglers

In Tula the Soviets spread a line, but may not have enough forces to hold, given the shocking replacement rolls.

Tula above. 

Kursk (above) a focal point for the turn, and it is now that we realize just what dire straights the Soviets are in.

Surrounded and cut from trace they have little time left. The Germans press the advantage. 21^st Pzr HQ fuels the 4^th Pzr and the 3 attached AT battalions and orders 3 hipshoots to break down the resistance and keep forces cut off. The airforce sweep prior to the hipshoots grounds the soviet air.

Kharkov, 4^th Pzr HQ reinforces flanking units ot the North and send air drop sP to Belgorod, landing air their to support efforts.

5 trucks converge on Chaplino to form an extender.

Wagons move to a new railhead west of Kharkov at the end of the Kolonsk River.

Corrections are made to 17^th Army. Looks like Wagon extenders were moved or bumped and the entire supply chain needs to be moved westward. This impacts where all the forces could reasonably be this turn. We withdraw units to reflect this.

Especially in the area of Mariupol. Here I would have used Reserve movement to achieve my goal but I figure it better to halt the advance.

Combat phase

Near Kursk is inconclusive and expensive, but does place the defenders in Low Ammo.

In the North the Soviets lose a step and retreat electing to use low ammo rather than be halved.

10^th Pzr joins 20^th west of Kaluga and the line looks mighty strung out.

Summary

Axis:

The snails pace advance will only worsen in the next turn or so when full mud hits. The Germans escaped trouble with much scrambling this turn. The sooner we get past the slow weather and deal with the winter penalties the better.  Kursk should fall in a turn or two and this with rail service will allow deeper delivery of SP and reinforcement. From there the Germans can stage to strike Tula OR South!!

I had hoped we could consolidate the German positions in the North prior to cruddy weather. But that is not the case.  Priorities will be pushing supply up, converting rail and digging in at key locations.

-Rhzev, Vorohenz and rail conversion here are critical, so that we can release truck for extenders and rail SP directly.

 

Consolidating armour forces for a early winter push should the opportunity arise is also needed to be done post Mud.

In the mean time in the South we will harvest SP and assess switching the Schwerpunkt to the South early (December?) to gain the upper hand over the Soviets in Jan 1942.

Soviets:

What can I say, but thank god for mud. defensive efforts have been thwarted at every step, with too few units and too many places to cover. Thankfuly though the lines around Moscow are 2 step Hedgehog deep, and almost every hex has at least one decent AR unit. The inability to roll much of anything for replacements has hurt the Soviets, who have had massive losses.

The air war is okish, my transport net a mess, and Kharkov is under threat. With the loss of Belgorod in the South Kursk is isolated and we must scramble to recover. In the South Rostov prepares for defense and I continue to shore up HH in Kharkov.  In the far North we have an opportunity to attack the thin 9th Army. This will require more SP. That said, the North looks like it might be an excellent place to launch a painful SP soaking counter attack.