presume the slaughter at Minsk is a sign of things to come ... this is going to be bruising bloody stuff isn't it?
Oh yes. Yes it will be.
You wanna live forever?!Early April, 1921
This turn was slaughter.Absolute, horrific slaughter. In a good way though.:laugh:.
Army Group Centrum receives its order and rolls out. Unfortunately for the Reds, so does Ovseenko, moving toward Kiev. As such, Ovseenko runs smack into Army Group Centrum. Essentially, in a pitched battle with no trenches and outnumbered, the Reds do pretty well:
Not bad, not bad. But Army Group Centrum has won the battle. Ovseenko retreats directly to his rear, to the little town of Konotop:
The Germans, inspired by their early victory, gave a lot better than they got. Ovseenko's army is essentially beaten to bloodly pulp by this battle.
However, he doesn't retreat for some reason, meaning another battle ensues:
Another win. This means that whilst Army Group Centrum has suffered more than 40.000 casualties, Ovseenko's has suffered 50.000 casualties. Army Group Centrum is still a fighting force, whilst Ovseenko's army has almost been wiped out, and flees to Chernigov. The strategic situation post-Konotop around Kiev:
I discovered to my dismay that Chernigov is actually a level 2 depot, meaning that if Ovseenko stays on the city, he'll regain 30% of his casualties in one turn. This is an unacceptable state of affairs, and I direct fresh reinforcements from Poland to ensure that they are not given the chance. At 35.000 strong, XII.Armee will more than a match for Ovseenko's depleted 30.000, and he'll receive support from across the river in the form of the stack of Army Group Centrum, who is regaining cohesion. You may have noticed that a certain fortified camp is still standing:
It's an unfortunate loss, but with renewed Ukrainian strength, the Northern Army Group can probably finish the job, at least, in the short term.
Further east, the blood bath continues:
A Pyrrhic victory as predicted, but at least Kharkov is recaptured. The Romanian corp of Army Group Sud. takes virtually the entirety of the brunt of the battle, and as a result is almost completely destroyed. They are directed to Odessa, to meet up with fresh Romanian reinforcements.*
The strategic situation post-Kharkov:
Don Corp is ordered to take the city, and if they fail, fresh German reinforcements from Poland will do the job. I'm concentrating an additional 3.500 power in Army Group Sud. as the defeat of the Don Front was hardly conclusive. Army Group Sud. and the Don Front will fight again.
The situation further south:
The Danziger Corp is due to arrive in Odessa next turn. It's a very powerful corp, and I attend it to be the tip of the spear for capturing Rostov.
Further north at Minsk:
Virtually nothing has happened. Tuchavesky has retreated eastward, and Army Group B (now with railpool) starts its advance northward. Army Group Nord will capture Minsk before considering further offensive operations. Whilst I'd like to be in Smolensk by the end of the year, operational consideration must be given to capturing Rostov.
In contrast to the static Belorussian theater, the Estonia theater is hot:
Njemen Armee is ordered to capture Ostrov, and well, does so in an absolutely spectacular manner:
Inflicting 2:1 casualties, Njemen Armee decides to set up a tent.
Reinforcements arriving from the east attack across a river, meaning a medium-sized defeat is inflicted upon them.
My guess is that at this juncture, the garrison was ordered to sally out during turn consideration. As a result, it sallied directly into the Germans, and then retreated after being slaughtered. This meant that the fort was empty, and thus, taken by the Germans and despawned.
The strategic situation post-Ostrov:
That's one fortified camp down, though I fear this theater may became a stalemate. The problem is that the Russian mud bogs down any movement off the railway, meaning I can't outflank the Reds behind the river at Pskov without taking several turns. I may have to ignore my own advice and attack across a river.
While those major bloodbaths have changed the strategic game somewhat, they illustrate a key problem the Germans have:
We've hit big hump, in that such massive battles like the last turn have run us flat out of reinforcements. Whilst our allied units are insulated from this by already having replacement chits lined up (from buying my guns earlier), the Germans do not. To combat this, another mobilization and some Russians are called up. While this will not completely end the manpower crisis, it will help significantly until another general mobilization can be called again.
You may also be wondering, Where the hell is all of my NM going? Well, as Bornego said:
We've been balanced. We gained some VPs and engagement points but lost NM, which sucks, but helps. The huge defeats inflicted on the Reds last turn also mean that they've dipped below 100 for the first time, and are now at 97. What's interesting here is how it changes the game. In vanilla RUS, NM was a zero-sum transaction. Inflicting a major defeat on an enemy meant you got some NM and they lost some, so that the winner by the end of the game had a lot NM and the losers were low. In DNO, both sides can have relatively high NMs early on if they take NM boosting decisions, meaning that dynamic is messed up.
However, if I keep winning such enormous battles like these, it won't matter, as the Reds will stay around 75 NM for the rest of the game.
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*These 'reinforcements' are actually Romanian Garrison. They'll replenish the Romanians this time, but if the corp is destroyed again, their manpower will probably be subsumed by German armies, as I don't have the manpower to build more Romanians.