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i cant help but think we're nearing the moment at which its all going to shatter, one way or another.
 
Delex: Yeah, balanced it certainly very much was :p

BritishImperial: Maybe...:p

Next update I'll hope to get up this coming weekend!
 
I might have the patience, if the game was a good one. And I think Discomb and I both agree that this certainly was a good game :D

No update today, but I will have the opportunity today to write one for tomorrow :p
 
12 kilometers south of Vilnius
May 15, 1942


Timoshenko stood in front of the map tacked up to the wall of the abandoned house his staff had commandeered as his command post. His hard eyes were penetrating the fog of war and the tunnel-vision of Front command to sweep the entire frontline upon which hostile armies were locked in deadly embrace, from the Baltic Sea all the way to the Black Sea. Zhukov had failed at Rowne, it was true, the Germans there achieved a supply corridor and were springing onto the offensive with thrusts toward Luniniec and Korosten. However, there was progress to the north an Timoshenko was not despairing yet; he and Vasilevskij both knew that the fortunes of war were capricious to a fault. Lady luck, beyond being whimsical, was the target of many suitors’ affections but with Vasilevskij he had set into motion another advance of his own which should, he hoped, gain her favor once and for all.

That is, if the front lasted that long. Pressure was building up in the Ukraine again, von Rundstedt was proving his tactical competence by thrashing Zhukov’s forces around Tarnopol with inferior numbers. Against Zhukov’s 18 primarily mobile divisions the Germans had pitted but 12 infantry divisions, but their greater effective organization was proving decisive in the battle. This had been three days previous; Timoshenko was expecting to receive news of Zhukov’s defeat soon. He had no grudge against Zhukov, he was merely being realistic. Timoshenko was merely glad that Ulex’s great concentration of armor which had been defeated around Mogilevi Podolski earlier had not yet fully crossed the river and reorganized around Beltsy else he would certainly soon join in the renewed offensive in the south, undoubtedly with dire consequences for the Soviets in the region. Fortunate too was the lethargic British retreat toward Stryj from Stanislawaw; their forces, however ineffectual, were not gearing toward another push at the moment either.

105-01-BattleofTarnopol.png

The battle of Tarnopol on the 12th of May.

His move in the north had begun taking its coherence on the 13th. The 1st Baltic Front under Colonel General Berzarin was advancing from Kaunas toward Alytus, where it would form the regional reserve, to be ready to move toward Konigsberg or Suwalki as necessary. Colonel General Antonov’s 2nd Baltic Front was pushing southward from Alytus toward Suwalki, following the recent defeat of the German units in the area. The 3rd Baltic Front under Colonel General Malinovskij was attacking toward Konigsberg to renew the revolving battle for that unfortunate and devastated city. The only unfavorable movement in the area had been that of Timoshenko’s own 1st Belarusian Front; it had been forced by enemy action to withdraw northward from Grodno toward Vilnius, which he could see may have appalling results if the Germans exploited the consequential gap between the three Baltic Fronts and his own Front at Kaunas. The Germans also attempted an attack on Baranowicze but Soviet reinforcements temporarily halted that advance.

105-02-AdvancingIntheNorthAgain.png

Advancing and retreating in the Baltic theater of operations.

The battle of Luniniec, meanwhile, had continued into the 14th. The 9 divisions originally defending it had been thrown back but, as usual, Bagramyan’s solitary corps had appeared out of nowhere and as actually seemingly holding the Germans back with some ease. Timoshenko was unsure how, but decided that it was perhaps best not to question the results Bagramyan was achieving. If the German advance was halted there then even a stronger renewal of the German drive toward Baranowicze did not hold the same danger even if it was still considerable. By this time, too, the heroic defensive battle for Pinsk had ended, in defeat. A full front of 24 divisions was fortifying Brest-Litovsk, having fortunately reached that town before the Germans crossing the Bug River from Lublin. Unfortunately, once Pinsk fell they would be encircled, though at least twelve divisions were escaping northward. Timoshenko shook his head.

105-03-BattleforLuniniec.png

The battle for Luniniec, apparently tilting in the Soviets’ favor.

Finally, it was time to review the prospects of Timoshenko’s bold sweeping movements in the Baltic area. Suwalki had fallen to the mobile corps of the 2nd Baltic Front early on the 14th and had kept going, pushing toward Lomza. There they were at the moment facing two corps of infantry, one German and the other British. Fortunately, the battle already seemed to be going in Antonov’s favor. His goal was, with the conquest of Lomza, to exploit and capture Warsaw. He had studied the German campaigns of the previous years, and was particularly impressed with their terrible lack of skill in urban settings, as best illustrated by their bloody attempt to take Budapest. If Antonov could reach Warsaw and hold it, it would be like an anchor to hold on to any Soviet penetration made up to that point and any that would be made in the future. Additionally, it would place the German forces around Torun under great risk from a multi-directional assault that would surely devastate their forces and open up East Prussia and northern Poland to maneuver warfare. Timoshenko had high hopes for his new offensive.

105-04-AdvancingonLomza.png

The southward sweep of the Baltic Fronts, particularly that from Alytus toward Warsaw through Suwalki and Lomza.

Timoshenko sighed deeply; this was not the war he had imagined. He had envisaged a war of maneuver, of movement back and forth across the plains of Poland measured in terms of hundreds of kilometers in a dizzying series of thrusts and counter-thrusts. Instead, what was being fought was nearly a positional war, albeit one that certainly contained dizzying series of thrusts and counter-thrusts. He had high hopes that his new offensive out of Lithuania would break the mold and initiate the maneuver warfare he wished for.
 
finally a breakthrough?
 
BritishImperial: That remains to be seen :D

Edzako: Every war is a gamble, to one extent or another, given the role chance plays. And besides, given how balanced the war has been, only risky maneuvers will really produce any chance of noteworthy success (or, also, debilitating failure) :p

I might not have an update ready until Wednesday.
 
Myth said:
Edzako: Every war is a gamble, to one extent or another, given the role chance plays. And besides, given how balanced the war has been, only risky maneuvers will really produce any chance of noteworthy success (or, also, debilitating failure) :p

True, but you must evaluate gains against potentional losses and chances of that unlucky event happening. Right now I can't see what that move could gain, but then again i haven't played the game and updates, no matter how well written, can't give same overview game does.


I might not have an update ready until Wednesday.

You can't possibly hinder this AAR now :mad: :p not at this point.
 
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I would have done Lomza as well. Even if that thrust is just going to get pushed back, it will draw enough attention to itself to temporarily suspend, or at least weaken my offensive. I would have to dedicate forces to retaking it, refortifying that area from the incoming stack...
 
Edzako: :D Unfortunately, I wasn't able to write an update for today but I'm about to write one for tomorrow. No worries, now that this is started yet again I'm not going to let it stop until it's over. :p

Discomb: Pff, as if you can talk about incoming stacks :p

As you may notice, I've tagged this AAR as: aar, soviet union, lan game, competitive and mixed style. :D
 
13 kilometers southwest of Baranowicze
May 15, 1942


Arsenij Chafirov looked nervously into the darkness that was looming at the entrenched Soviet forces from the west and rubbed his hands in the pre-dawn chill of the very early morning. He, Nikifor Talenskij and Valeri Razumovskij huddled in a hurriedly constructed log pillbox that sat low to the ground to minimize its profile. They had between them three Mosin Nagant rifles, five grenades and a flare. Their pillbox was connected by a trench to another pillbox, and that to another and back to a second line of defense and so on. They had been ordered to construct relatively impromptu fortifications between Baranowicze and Slonim as it was expected that the Germans would attack toward the former town at any moment.

In fact, Sergeant Andrei Suvorin had warned them just half an hour ago that scouts were reporting increases in activity up and down the trench line. Though they were reassured by the news as soon as Suvorin had left their confidence vanished with him. They were veterans of Suwalki, they knew as well as anybody the tactical competence of the Germans and the fearsomeness of their soldiers and panzers. It was at this time that they began hearing things, out beyond the pillbox, protected by the shroud of darkness. Arsenij, Nikifor and Valeri exchanged worried glances, and then all three pairs of eyes settled on the flare. With trembling hands, Nikifor gripped it, closed his eyes and lit it. He then threw it through the pillbox aperture and into the clinging night. The darkness fled, and with it any hope the soldiers may have had of a peaceful night.

Crouching right before them, blinking in the sudden, harsh and intrusive burst of light, were two Germans. They were sappers, and one of them had a dreaded flame thrower. All of a sudden it seemed as if things were moving slowly for Nikifor as he shouted and grabbed his rifle. In his fevered fear of the flame thrower he barely even aimed but simply fired toward the Germans. It was his good luck to strike the canister of fuel on the man’s back, incinerating it, him and his comrade in a burst of flame. Both Arsenij and Valeri grabbed their rifles and made ready for combat as activity exploded on both sides of the trench line. Flares flew up into the night sky or into the dark brush and cast the battlefield in a harsh, unreal glow. Men charged out of the night, shouting in German and spraying bullets toward pillboxes and trenches. Grenades drummed back and forth, into the darkness and back out of it into the trenches. Orders and swears in German and Russian mingled in the air that was suddenly rent by the agents of destruction.

The fury of the German assault stunned the Soviets. Within ten seconds of the beginning of the battle, mortar rounds were falling among the trenches and the telltale rankling noise of treads were creaking forward, closer to the trenches. A grenade bounced off the pillbox Nikifor and his comrades were in and they had to duck to avoid being sprayed by shrapnel entering from the aperture. Valeri answered in kind, tossing a grenade into the alternatively waxing and waning darkness that soon after emitted screams of pain and horror. They fought for their pillbox as hard as they could, expending all their grenades within minutes of the opening of the battle. However, it was not enough. They could see jets of liquid flame engulf first one pillbox, then another. Suvorin appeared as if by magic in the doorway to their pillbox and yelled at them over the cacophony of battle. “We have to pull back to the second line of defense! They’re making penetrations!”

The three privates needed no second urging and dashed away with Suvorin, leaving just in time to avoid a well-aimed round from a tank that ricocheted into their pillbox and detonated in an explosion. Nikifor, the last to leave, could feel the heat on his back. They turned the corner and dashed into the communications trench to run headlong into a party of Germans. Both groups exclaimed in surprise but the Germans reacted first, hurriedly spraying bullets into the Russians. Valeri screamed and collapsed as German bullets found his vulnerable flesh. Suvorin threw himself at one of the Germans and grappled with him, trying to smash the man’s head in with his PPSh’s wooden butt. Arsenij’s two daggers appeared out of nowhere as his rifle dropped to the ground and he dove at another German. Nikifor, at the back of the group, fired from hip at one German, crumpling him to the ground. Shouting from behind him caused Nikifor to spin around; there were more Germans approaching.

Nikifor dropped one of them with a well-aimed shot and then charge them, wielding his long rifle like a staff in a simultaneous attempt to bash them and to prevent them from moving further along the trench system. Suddenly he saw Arsenij bolt under one of his swings and tackle the entire group of Germans himself, daggers flashing back and forth. Nikifor could only just make out his shouting over all the other noise. “Suvorin, Nikifor! Get out of here, I’ll try to buy some time!”

Nikifor was about to protest when Suvorin grabbed his arm and dragged him away. Nikifor could only keep looking back at Arsenij’s struggle until he was out of sight around a corner, and then stumbled after Suvorin slightly more willingly than he had previously done. They reached the second line of defense and assumed their positions. Nikifor noticed that their ranks had been quite thinned out already and he did not believe that they could hold the second line of defense if the fury of the German assault continued unabated. Especially without Arsenij.

Nikifor steeled himself as Germans boiled out of the trenches where he and Suvorin had just fled from.
 
suh-weet.
 
BritishImperial: :p

The next update will be back to our (ir)regularly scheduled command decisions, presumably tomorrow!
 
Delex: Yeah, I do. I see what direction the attack/defense is coming from/pointing toward or where the movement of the armies are going and then make up numbers and directions from there. :p

No update for this morning I'm afraid. Yesterday was my last day of work and the day I finished my last essay, however, so things should be getting better from here on out. IE, I'll have one for tomorrow almost certainly :p
 
The Kremlin
May 16, 1942


Vasilevskij stood in front of Stalin, for all intents and purposes on trial for his conduct of the war. Stalin had given him remarkable freedom in prosecuting it how he saw fit, but there was still civilian oversight of the process, embodied by Stalin himself. Following the events on the front with some concern, Stalin had decided to exercise that right of oversight and question Vasilevskij on his strategy and its prospect of success. If he was being honest with himself, Vasilevskij knew that his strategy had been a hard sell to Stalin in the first place. The man had been deeply impressed by Imperial Russia’s strategy during 1812, when they had essentially traded space for time. Studies of that campaign showed that, though the Russians had originally planned to fight on the border, it was eventually decided that such a course of action would be disastrous and instead they opted for an army-in-being strategy that saw the Russian army constantly harrying and harassing the French until Borodino, and then again afterwards once the French had begun withdrawing. In 1942, guided by Vasilevskij, STAVKA had opted for the exact opposite decision.

Stalin coughed, drawing Vasilevskij’s attention away from his ruminations of the past and back to the present. Indicating that he was ready to hear Vasilevskij’s presentation, Stalin sat back in his chair with a pen ready to take notes if necessary. Vasilevskij cleared his throat and begun. “As you are already appraised of events up to the 15th of May, I shall detail only yesterday’s occurrences before offering my assessment of the strategic situation. Early in the morning, the Germans attacked the two mobile corps of the 1st Belarussian Front at Baranowicze and two other unidentified corps, to where they had withdrew after heavy fighting around Suwalki in a very roundabout manner. Their parent Front was to the north, at Vilnius, and in no position to aid them. The German assault was even more ferocious than expected, comprising an entire eight panzer corps, or twenty-four armored and motorized infantry divisions. These were fresh units, as opposed to the battered divisions they were attacking. Our provincial defenses were breached within hours.”

107-01-BattleforBaranowicze.png

The battle for Baranowicze, which saw Soviet defenses crumble terrifyingly quickly.

“As we were being defeated at Baranowicze, Timoshenko went on the offensive around Grodno, throwing his Front, minus the two mobile corps, southward. He faced only a single German panzer corps, making his odds of success even better than the German odds at Baranowicze. Retaking his old positions around Grodno would allow him to flank any German push toward Baranowicze and effectively force them to divert units to attempt to counter any potential threat he may be.”

107-02-BattleforGrodno.png

Timoshenko’s assault on Grodno.

“At the same time, Antonov brought the rest of his Front to bear around Lomza, sealing the fate of the Anglo-German defenders. It was soon clear that the Germans were also withdrawing from Grodno for it was deemed a lost cause by the local commander. Lomza is a flexible position if supplies can be consistently kept flowing to it. From there, it would be possible to strike toward Torun, Warsaw, Lublin and Bielsk. A strong thrust in any of these directions would spell considerable grief for the Germans if they could not counter it, and to counter it would require a massive weakening of their spearhead units.”

107-03-BattleofLomza.png

The battle of Lomza, with the rest of Antonov’s Front taking part.

“Finally, yesterday evening Zhukov began his renewed offensive. He had been driven out of Tarnopol by the Germans but upon reaching Vinnitsa he had gathered additional forces and counterattacked. Tarnopol was only defended by two panzer corps at the time, six divisions. Against this, Zhukov massed 45 divisions, attacking along three axes. Though the Germans seem to be rushing reinforcements toward Tarnopol from Lvov, they will likely arrive too late to make much difference.”

107-04-AttackonTarnopol.png

The massively biased battle of Tarnopol.

“This is important as Zhukov’s plan is as ambitious as Timoshenko’s offensive in the north. He plans to drive onward toward Kowel once Tarnopol is recaptured. This would fulfill various ambitions. It would isolate the Germans at Rowne once again, for one. Secondly, it would directly threaten Zamosc and Lublin.”

107-05-ZhukovsPlan.png

The first phase of Zhukov’s operational plan.

“As can be seen, our prospects are actually quite promising. Lomza has fallen to our forces, and Zhukov does not expect much difficulty in rushing to Kowel. We are in the process of placing the bulk of German forces into an enormous encirclement, one that stretches nearly the entirety of Belarus and a quarter of the Ukraine. We have twenty-four divisions in danger of being encircled at Brest-Litovsk. Around it, the Germans have perhaps up to 60 divisions in danger of being encircled. If they are successful, they will open up a major gap in our frontline. If we are successful, their army will be all but annihilated as a coherent fighting force. The risks are high, and the stakes are higher.”

Vasilevskij had finished his presentation and dared to look away from the map and actually study Stalin’s reaction. He saw the dictator smiling in a subtle sort of way and stroking his moustache. Vasilevskij felt weak inside, with relief and joy. He had passed Stalin’s trial.
 
Ahh, now I see more clearly what you are up to, taking Lomz makes sense if you planned this massive drive north-west abusing lack of strong German formation there. Taking Lublin could be a problem though, I once played a game where I fought entire allied forces in this region, mainly american and british forces (because these nations were controlled by humans) and I was unable to take breach their defenses there. I still see Lublin in my nightmares :D , hopefully you will have better success.
 
I have never seen that possibilities of double envelopments are generated so fast (Probably because my Soviet army is normally some 400 divs of infantry, which just walk over the enemy lol).
 
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