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Loved the extra detail there in the origins of AF1: I’d never heard that before, that I can recall.
Well, I first read that information last week, when I was researching for the above update.

:D:D For Australians “taking the scenic route” is what you say when you humorously acknowledge (without really admitting it) that you got lost!
Interesting, and not that surprising. I guess you can still differentiate thanks to tone, between the scenic route and the 'scenic' route.

Very much like that kind of image altering for alt-hist authenticity. It’s the little things that count. :cool:
I couldn't resist.

then up against the wall!
Kings have no place in our Communist utopia.

My guess is it’s more likely to be romantic rather than enemy action! ;)
No comment

1. Rockets? He’ll yeah! :D
2. Care a fair bit about the officer ratio, but not necessarily to 140%.
3. War in the Balkans. It’s the main game.
4. I reckon no more than a small corps as first wave troops (3-4 divs), the rest can be conventional once the coast is clear.
5. I like TAC for the truly heavy effect on soft targets. CAS can always be added if it’s a hard target.
1. A Rocket Test Site it is then. I wasn't 100% sold, but seeing your enthusiasm, I don't see why not.
2. Well, it's a little over 93% right now, so 140% seems quite some years away as it is, even if we don't start training additional ground units.
3. I was leaning that way as well, even if an offensive in Norway would require fewer troops, war in the Balkans would have a larger impact.
4. 3-4 Divisions seems reasonable.
5. Our Tac research is 3 years behind that of other major powers, whilst our CAS are state of the art. That, a lack of leadership to do much more than keep up with research for existing units, and the large number of hard targets the Wehrmacht keeps providing, all push us in the direction of CAS. In the long term, we could really benefit from up to date Tac. Ideally, we would get licenses to build more advanced Tac's, tough securing such licenses may prove very difficult, if not impossible. Then again, to make researching Tac technologies cheaper, building up Tac Practical would help a lot. The chicken and the egg really...

Catching up and I probably should be more bothered about Odinstat. But I am not, because this is clearly far more important;
I'm just going to take a swig from a hip-flask in response to this.

I am proud of my boys for this one. They can look forward to the War Victory Cross (5th Class) at least for this incredible feat of arms.
I would argue the incompetence of STAVKA is just as much to blame for these events, as Turanec's actions. A 5th class medal seems perfectly suited to Turanec.

Jagdtigers in 1942? That is quite concerning, we can only hope German production is as relentlessly terrible as it always was with advanced weapon systems.
Yes, they are also on some evolution of the King Tiger, and regular Panzer-divisions are equipped with Panthers. According to Paradox, the StG-44 is equivalent to the SVT-40 as an Infantry weapon, and both are 1942 technology... The more I look into the details, the more strange things I find...

I should probably point out, if it wasn't obvious, that the way Lend-Lease works in HOI3 TFH, the Soviet Union won't actually be getting US-built units, but just a dollop of extra IC it can do with what it pleases. For the sake of the story, and of variety, I'm thus going to pretend some new units are fitted with US-built weapons, vehicles, or aeroplanes. This will have no impact on their in-game performance when compared to identical non-LL units, though it may have some effects in the narrative. (I'm not sure what those would be yet, though I have a couple of ideas.)
 
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Interesting. How very much like Stalin. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, I demand more.;)

Then I suggest putting The Road to Stalingrad and The Road to Berlin on your reading list if you haven't already. Because
Erickson got a fair bit of his material from interviews with surviving Soviet marshals in the 1960s (pretty much all of them except Zhukov who was in internal exile at the time), his books have a personal perspective that helps keep the main narrative from being too dry.
The only weakness is that he wrote the books in the 1970s so while they are accurate, they are incomplete due to things like the true story of Operation Mars were not available to him.
 
Then I suggest putting The Road to Stalingrad and The Road to Berlin on your reading list if you haven't already. Because
Erickson got a fair bit of his material from interviews with surviving Soviet marshals in the 1960s (pretty much all of them except Zhukov who was in internal exile at the time), his books have a personal perspective that helps keep the main narrative from being too dry.
The only weakness is that he wrote the books in the 1970s so while they are accurate, they are incomplete due to things like the true story of Operation Mars were not available to him.
I personally also recommend the more recent works by David Glantz, likely starting with When Titans Clashed which serves as a general overview of this theater of the war, if I remember the title correctly. I mean this as complementary to Erickson's work, as Glantz was able to supplement and expand on previous work due to the opening of old Soviet archives. Very useful to get the true picture of some less-glorious moments in the Soviet war history like Operation Mars.
 
Then I suggest putting The Road to Stalingrad and The Road to Berlin on your reading list if you haven't already. Because
Erickson got a fair bit of his material from interviews with surviving Soviet marshals in the 1960s (pretty much all of them except Zhukov who was in internal exile at the time), his books have a personal perspective that helps keep the main narrative from being too dry.
The only weakness is that he wrote the books in the 1970s so while they are accurate, they are incomplete due to things like the true story of Operation Mars were not available to him.
The only serious book I have read on the Eastern front is "Russia at War" by Alexander Werth, a British war correspondent in the Soviet Union from 1964. I stumbled upon a french translation of it in a second hand book shop, for a very low price. There is some material in there from interviews with Generals, but it's mostly based on his own experience of the war, and conversations he had with various figures during the war. He really tells the story of the war from the Soviet side. (though of course there is information he never had access to so it's definitely not up to date) I would surely be interested in reading Erickson's take, preferably in English...

I personally also recommend the more recent works by David Glantz, likely starting with When Titans Clashed which serves as a general overview of this theater of the war, if I remember the title correctly. I mean this as complementary to Erickson's work, as Glantz was able to supplement and expand on previous work due to the opening of old Soviet archives. Very useful to get the true picture of some less-glorious moments in the Soviet war history like Operation Mars.
Yes, I have heard of Glantz, and this book in particular.

With your enthusiastic endorsements, I'm moving both of these to the top of my list. That said, my budget for books (unrelated to my studies) is limited, as is my time to read them, so it will take some time before I get around to it. Thank you for the suggestions.

EDIT
This is probably because a single train of 40 x 20t wagons (even if only 3/4s full) would be enough to transport all of Sweden's annual Tungsten production several times over. Sweden might be doing 250t/year, which is basically nothing out of a global production of 50,000t.

I realise this may be a shock, but Paradox cocked up by giving Sweden the Tungsten strategic resource. But then they arguably cocked up with what Tungsten actually represents, so they are at least consistent at being wrong. :D
Before writing that particular update, I briefly looked into the world's Tungsten producers, and Sweden didn't rank high on the list. More Tungsten gets produced in Russia (at least today) than in Sweden. I didn't look into it much further, assuming it had to be one of two possibilities: 1. Sweden produced more Tungsten back then, 2. Paradox messed up somehow.
In the end it was all a convenient excuse to have the characters take a trip to Kiruna at a time of renewed Soviet-Swedish diplomatic tensions.
 
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I have returned from a long trip inspecting the forces policing the Finnish region. Plus the infrastructure there. The infrastructure is terrible; there are barely any east-west links anywhere beyond the southernmost parts. Northern Norway is equally poor. Troops are in relatively good order and spirits, even if occupation duty isn't a favourite of anyone. Long distances and poor infrastructure makes their job of putting down uprisings hard though, and they either need to be able to move faster or be in more places at once if uprisings are to be defeated faster.

11 seems to be whipping her new unit into shape, good for her! Overall the front looks like it has stabilized a bit over the past couple of updates. We aren't losing as much ground as before, and less battles seem to result in absolute disasters. The VVS is still doing a good job of supporting the Army, and our mechanized corps reaching the front should now be able to start reversing the tide, at least locally.
 
I have returned from a long trip inspecting the forces policing the Finnish region. Plus the infrastructure there. The infrastructure is terrible; there are barely any east-west links anywhere beyond the southernmost parts. Northern Norway is equally poor. Troops are in relatively good order and spirits, even if occupation duty isn't a favourite of anyone. Long distances and poor infrastructure makes their job of putting down uprisings hard though, and they either need to be able to move faster or be in more places at once if uprisings are to be defeated faster.
Glad to see you've found your way back to civilisation despite the spreading insurrection. There is a lot of work to be done to bring Finnish Infrastructure up to modern standards. Some improvements are being done right now, but mostly priority has been given to the Infrastructure that supplies our Western front line and Eastern border. That does mean that insurgencies in the Finnish interior take a long time to root out. Of course, the question of whether we need more State Security forces in the area has once again come to the fore with this new uprising. We could possibly equip them with US-supplied weapons. As these insurgencies are clearly linked with the Axis Finnish government in Berlin, I'm sure they won't object.

11 seems to be whipping her new unit into shape, good for her!
They're doing well thus far, but war can be an unpredictable business and the Lwow area is coming under increasing pressure.

Overall the front looks like it has stabilized a bit over the past couple of updates. We aren't losing as much ground as before, and less battles seem to result in absolute disasters. The VVS is still doing a good job of supporting the Army, and our mechanized corps reaching the front should now be able to start reversing the tide, at least locally.
A good assessment of the situation. You'll see how much of it continues to hold true in the next update, which will be posted as soon as I find the time to finish it. (it might still take a week, or two)
 
1st of August 1942, 'Odin': GPW 10-day Report #4
1st of August 1942, Helsingör, 13,9°C, 6pm Moscow Time

Report on the Great Patriotic War between 6pm on the 22nd of July and 6pm on the 1st of August 1942.

Before we get to the overview, a letter 'Odinatsat':

The 27th of July 1942, 1am Moscow Time, 6,5°C

Yesterday, our Breakfast was a bit lighter than usual. The city hadn't gotten any new supplies in days. It seemed priority was given to supplying our troops in Jaworow in the hope to hang on to the recently recovered province. Sergeant Bylinkin notified me that the central ammunition stores were dangerously low, and that we would have to make do with the ammunition we had in case we came under attack. At 8am, almost as if they could smell our lack of ammunition, the German 11 PzD attacked from Przemysl. After the fiasco with the flame-throwers and the Hungarians, they had changed their approach. The first shots sounded on Horodotska street, more precisely at the bridge across the railway branch connecting Lwow Central Station with Lwow-Persenkowka Station. A smaller secondary attack around the bridge at Liubinska street started fifteen minutes later. Both attacks were supported by FlaK-88s and PaK-43s, with the Panzers staying out of sight for the moment. The enemy infantry was moving slowly and carefully across both bridges, they probably didn't know our situation. To make matters worse, the amount of troops in the city was cut in half in the previous days, with only Popov's XXIX GvSK and 10 TTGvD remaining. The order came in from Lt. General Popov's HQ to conserve ammunition and attempt to slow down the enemy movements rather than stopping them. Shoot to kill only. We all needed to buy time until we could get more ammunition. The attention of the FlaK-88s was soon diverted by our own bombing raids on both bridges. With only few bombs available, the effect wasn't as hoped, and despite a few holes, none of the bridges was sufficiently damaged to have much impact on German military vehicles. By 10am, German vehicles started crossing the bridge, a few were knocked out by our Artillery and Il-10's, but the vehicles and tanks kept coming as our stockpiles of 100mm, 122mm and 152mm rounds were quickly dwindling. Shelling was halted, at least on our side.

Our guards riflemen were using the city as cover to fight small groups of Germans at very short distances, making every bullet and grenade count, before quickly retreating before the German big guns started to hit their position and the Panzers could be brought to bear. A real game of cat and mouse. Our snipers were only taking shots at relatively short ranges, below 400m for stationary targets, and below 250m for moving targets. The Germans were definitely losing more men than we were, but we were losing ground, and didn't have the ammunition to take it back. My whole sniper team was anxious, Germans were closing in, and I had ordered them not to do anything about it until they got too close for comfort. No 1km trick shots, no massed fire, one shot, one kill, that's what was expected of us. Doing the highest possible amount of damage with the rounds we had was the name of the game.

At 1pm, with Germans about 700m away from the Church, the Horodotska Street Bridge exploded. It seems our engineers had gathered enough explosives to blow the bridge sky-high. They had managed to place them and trigger them without getting shot. A brave operation, further delaying the German advance, at least along Horodotska Street. A 4pm, we could finally start shooting stationary targets at a range where it was hard for a well-trained marksman to miss. By nightfall, we had expended more than half of our limited ammunition supply, wounding or killing over 60 enemy combattants. I decided against ordering our Rifle squad and Machine-Gun squad downstairs to hand over some of their ammunition. If this situation continued, they would need their ammunition to secure our position, or in the worst case, our retreat.

The night brought some calm, as the Germans halted their advance, probably consolidating their new front line, less than 100m from the church at the closest point. Only three of us remained on night watch high above the streets outside. Myself, Sr. Sergeant Bondarchuk, and Yefreitor Gribkov, one in each tower. With 60 rounds left between the three of us, there wasn't much point in keeping up anyone else. The most experienced marksmen would hold the fort, while the rest got some much-needed sleep, especially those who had been on night watch the previous night. Shortly before midnight, my radio operator, who had been sleeping next to his radio set, came to me with sleepy eyes and his radio set in hand. He handed me the reciever:

"Mam, Lt. General Popov on the radio, it's for you."

"Thank you private. Keep watch while I take this."
Private Neyizhkaha turned to peer at all the places we knew the Germans were, or at least had been before darkness fell. It was a moonless night, and half of our floodlights were out, having been captured, or put out of action by German snipers and/or Artillery. There was some movement on the German side, but we had no idea what they were doing exactly.

"Lt. General, to what do I owe the pleasure."

"Captain. I've been talking on the Radio with my immediate superior, General Sokolovskij, since things calmed down, and I've been ordered to leave Lwow, and relocate North, to Krasne. My HQ is using up supplies that could be used on the front, and 10 TTGvD should be enough to push a single German Panzer-Division back out of the city with the fresh supplies that have started to arrive. There should be enough to replenish 10 TTGvD's stockpiles, but not enough for both it and My HQ unit. We'll be gone by 2am. I'm re-assigning you and your unit to 10 TTGvD, you will now report directly to Maj. General Novikov N.A.'s HQ. The German front line being so close to your location, and with my own unit redeploying away from the front, I've decided to, somewhat belatedly, fulfil your request for a medic. Sr. Sergeant Yelena Mikhaylova is one of the best medical instructor under my command, she should be reporting to you before 1am. Good luck Captain. You're going to need it, now more than ever."

"Thank you Lt. General, it was an honour."

"The honour was all mine. Dismissed Captain."
By 0:30am, the city was abuzz with frantic activity. Lots of lorries, motorcycles, and horse-drawn carts were moving around in the dark. Supplies had arrived and now the race was on to resupply all of 10 TTGvD before dawn. Maj. General's quartermaster contacted us over the radio to know if we needed more supplies, and by 2:45am a GAZ-MM lorry halted outside the church. As Bylinkin's men brought a box of high grade 7.62 rounds up into the tower, they were followed by a combat medic. Due to the commotion, everyone in the tower woke up. Our assigned medic was a rather short woman in her late '20s with a kind face. She saluted and introduced herself:

SrSergeantMedic-min.jpg

Sr. Sergeant Yelena Mikhaylova, Red Army Guards Medical instructor. Within a regular company, there is a medical section counting a Sr. Sergeant or Sergeant and 4 Medics (Private). In Capt. Goloniewsky's Platoon, she's on her own.

"Captain, Sr. Sergeant Medic Mikhaylova, reporting for duty, Mam."

"Welcome to St. Elizabeth Church, Sr. Sergeant. You're just in time for the show. At dawn, all hell will break loose out there. Germans have been digging in and moving vehicles all night. Who knows what they brought into the city under the cover of darkness. The front line is less than 100m that way. That's the closest they've ever gotten to this place, we're in their way now. Whichever way they go now, they will be exposed to our sniper fire. Of course, what they don't know is that 10 TTGvD has been fully resupplied overnight. I'm sure Maj. General Novikov N.A. has a nasty plan to push them back out of the city come morning. We only have you to rely on for emergency medical care in case things go wrong, be it a little, or a lot. I would like to suggest you set yourself up near the base of the main tower. That way you're at little risk of taking a stray bullet, or some shrapnell from a shell."

"Mam, that makes sense, I will get my affairs set up right now, Mam."

"Sr. Sergeant, any suggestions concerning our general health? It would be helpful for us to be in the best possible shape for the battle tomorrow."

"Mam, if I may be so blunt, I recommend for you to get some sleep while you can, Captain."
Having spent some of the previous nights with Sergei, I was getting quite sleep-deprived. Add in the stress of the battle, and I wasn't anywhere close to what you'd call well-rested.

"Private Lobovskaya, you're on watch. You will wake me at 5:30am tomorrow, or if the Germans start shooting, whichever occurs first."
I don't know what tomorrow will bring, it will likely be hairy, at least for a while. Just in case something goes wrong, or I loose contact in the confusion, I'm sending off this letter before I go to sleep,

Let's put these krauts in the ground,

Capt. Irina Alexandrovich Goleniewsky (aka. 11)
This is the last letter we got from our woman in Lwow. I may have to go there to investigate what happened since, and where she has gone.
Arctic Front (XXXIV GSK / 1st AG / Leningrad HQ):

Snowstorms have slowed down the movements of our mountaineers, and only 2 more empty provinces have fallen under our control. Instead of looking at the map of the slow inexorable march of our Mountaineers through the Arctic part of Norway. Let's look at the next potential target for our troops in the Far North. Narvik.

Narvik42-08-01_1800-min.jpg

Some interesting intelligence was gathered by V Flot Podlodok, as it passed Narvik. It looks like a small-scale operation to take the city from the sea isn't on the cards. Not with such a high concentration of German units, including King Tigers. Also of note is the Norwegian Navy, which is parked off the coast with no-where to go. A landing in Tromso could easily be supplied by air. It could be a diversion to draw German troops out of Narvik itself. The terrain North of Narvik suits our Mountaineers who should be able to hold off the Panzers in the mountains. Of course, the safest option is to not do anything, keeping the Mountain Rifles in reserve for policing duties, and in the unlikely case that the Swedes stir up trouble. Of course, eventually we can connect the Tromso area with the Finnish road network, but that will take time. Building a port in Tromso also seems like a waste of resources because it would need to be cleared of Ice for a large part of the year to function. The same issues we already have in Murmansk.​

Finland (NKGBF / Leningrad HQ):

At 3am on the 23rd, 8 Finnish Partisan units revolted, taking control of small areas of land in the Finnish hinterland. The NKGBF is on the case, with it's Mounted Brigades riding to deal with those foreign agents, fascist agitators, and their converts.

The first unit on the scene was 3 NKGBFKB. The plan was for the mounted state security force to root out Partisans in Nurmes (2). However, the 2nd Finnish Partisans had other ideas, and attacked them in Juuka (1) instead, at 10am on the 25th of July. The result was a confused mess where both sides charged into each-others staging province, until our Mounted security forces gained the initiative and pushed them all back into Nurmes (2), ending the skirmishes in Juuka (1). Of course, ex-Finnish Army Generals were found to be in command of newly set up rebel HQ's. Resistance in Nurmes (2) ceased at 3pm.

FPF42-08-01-min.jpg

The NKGBF is slow to move towards the more remote areas of the Finland SSR. In some areas, mud is slowing down the horses of the mounted brigades, further compounding the travel times. Temporary reinforcements would really help to contain the spread of the insurgency. Some voices in the Red Army have suggested sending in the VDV, as they could be dropped right on top of the slippery insurgents, and fighting a badly-armed foe with inferior numbers would still be good training. As the battle of Slagelse showed, our Paratroopers could really use some more training, preferably without the risk of one of the remaining Divisions shattering and surrendering. Unless someone can come up with a better immediate use for the VDV, they will be brought in as soon as they have fully recovered from the 2nd battle of Copenhagen.

1. Juuka (Defence - Forest - Victory)
25 Jul 42 10:00
SU: 3 NKGBFKB (Cavx2 - Maligin, L1)
5.998 men /
1 KIA
Fin (Nurmes): 2 FinPar (Mil -)
2.999 men / 15 KIA
2. Nurmes (Attack - Forest - Victory)
25 Jul 42 11:00 - 15:00
SU (Juuka): 3 NKGBFKB (Cavx2 - Maligin, L1, OD)
5.997 men / 1 KIA
Fin: 2 Corps (HQ - Heinrichs, L3), 2 FinPar (Mil)
3.089 men / 18 KIA / 3.121 POW
Anti-Partisan Operations (including the previous anti-partisan operation)

NKGBF: 109.951 (+11.995) / 68 KIA (+2) (ground)
Fin: 40.375 (+6.088) / 391 KIA (+33 / ground) / 25.857 POW (+3.121)
Baltic Sea (XXXIII SK / VDV / RBBF / Leningrad HQ):

Finally, at 10pm on the 23rd of July, Copenhagen (1) fell. Disappointingly, the veteran 13 Infanterie-Division that had made the operation so difficult managed to slip away into Sweden. With transit rights still in effect, it can only really go to Norway, which is probably where it came from. At 11pm, troops from 111 SD took possession of the city. A welcome surprise was that not only the Harbour installations, but also the massive Air Base cum Airport, and the many factories in the city, were fully operational. It still wasn't over though, trapped in a corner, 135. Sicherungs-Division was desperately trying to fight it's way out. The Garrison forces are severely disadvantaged as they lack any training or equipment to help them attack across the straight into Copenhagen (2).

The Garrison troops could take no more, and at 11pm on the 25th, they stopped their desperate strait-crossing attacks. Casualties were below 30 on our side, and over 900 on theirs.

At 3am, on the morning of the 26th of July, elements of the recently arrived 124 SD crossed the strait unopposed to accept the surrender of 325 Sicherungs-Division in Guldborgsund. Three hours later, it was all over. All axis forces had been evicted from Copenhagen and it's vicinity.

The 1st of August saw a cross-strait attack on Slagelse (3) by an Italian Infantry Division that had just arrived in Odense. It wasn't really much of a battle, the first two small boats with Italian Infantry started to cross the strait, and our riflemen opened fire, killing most of the occupants of the first two boats. A third boat wisely returned to the opposite coast, but was still taken out by a well-aimed Mortar shell. All that remained were 22 Italian corpses, floating in the bay.

Baltic42-08-01-min.jpg

The Öresund is open to our shipping. Guarded by our newly gained Naval Base and Air Base in Copenhagen, we should be able to protect the impending Lend-Lease convoys from the USA. Our Red Banner Baltic Fleet is now free to move into the Atlantic, opening up the possibility of future landings in Norway, or even on the German Atlantic Coast. V. IAK has been brought in to provide Air Cover to our naval operations, as well as to our troops in the area. Another benefit is the fact that Germany has lost it's land connection to Norway, through Sweden, so whatever troops they have there can only be evacuated by sea.

1. Copenhagen (Attack - Urban - Victory)
21 Jul 42 01:00 - 23 Jul 42 22:00
SU (Öresund / RBBF - Amphibious Invasion): 111 SD /1 (Infx2 - Komarovskij, L2, Eng) (Slagelse): 2 VDD (Parx3), 1 VDD (Parx3)
23.995 men /
594 KIA
Ger: 13 ID (Infx3 - Buchs, L3)
7.885 men /
222 KIA​
2. Copenhagen 2 (Defence - Urban - Victory)
24 Jul 42 00:00 - 25 Jul 42 23:00
SU: 111 SD /1 (Infx2 - Komarovskij, L2), 111 SD /2 (Inf, Art, AT), 124 SD (Art, AT)
21.795 men /
29 KIA
Ger (Guldborgsund): 325 SD (Garx2, AA - Lemelsen, L2, BM)
6.998 men /
953 KIA / 6.045 POW​
3. Slagelse 2 (Defence - Plains - Victory)
01 Aug 42 06:00
SU: 124 SD (Art, AT - Simoniak, L2, Trk), 123 SD (Art, AT)
21.990 men /
0 KIA
Ita (Odense - Strait Crossing): 32a DF (Infx2 - Calcagno, L2)
5.998 men /
22 KIA​

Air Battles (Baltic):

3. Southern Baltic (Soviet Intercept - Victory)
26 Jul 42 14:00 - 18:00
VMF: 2 KPA - CAG - 28 La-7VM, 28 Il-10VM - 84 airmen - Leningrad (Pommeranian Coast) - Air Capt 1C Falaleev, L4
8 KPA - CAG - 32 La-7VM, 32 Il-10VM - 96 airmen - Moskva (Pommeranian Coast) - Air Capt 1C Knriukni, L2
120 planes / 180 airmen /
2 downed / 3 KIA
Luftwaffe: Seeaufklärungsgruppe A - Nav - 25 Ju-290A-5 - 225 airmen - ? - Oberst Ritter, L3, FD
25 planes / 225 airmen /
5 downed / 45 KIA​

5. Copenhagen (Soviet Intercept - Victory)
26 Jul 42 22:00 - 27 Jul 01:00
VMF: 8 KPA - CAG - 32 La-7VM, 32 Il-10VM - 96 airmen - Moskva (Pommeranian Coast) - Air Capt 1C Knriukni, L2
2 KPA - CAG - 27 La-7VM, 27 Il-10VM - 81 airmen - Leningrad (Pommeranian Coast) - Air Capt 1C Falaleev, L4
VVS: V IAK - Intx4 - 496 Yak-7 - 496 airmen - Lwow - Lt. Gen. Av. Skripko, L4
614 planes / 673 airmen /
15 downed / 22 KIA
Luftwaffe: JG 77, JG 71, JG 52 - Intx3 - 328 Me-109G - 328 airmen - ? - Genlt. von Greim, L4, SAT
328 planes / 328 airmen /
28 downed / 28 KIA​
Northern German Front (2 AG & Arm AG / Moskva HQ):


Jurbarkas-min.jpeg

Jurbarkas, before the war. A small town along the Memel river, it was once again the location of heavy fighting as 2 AG moved riflemen into the area, only for them to come under attack from fresh German Infantry.
1am on the 23rd saw a two-pronged attack on Lida (8), featuring an Armoured Cavalry Division and a Motorised Rifle Division, both part of 2ya Tankovaya Armiya. News from Jurbarkas (1) at 5am put a damper on the newfound optimism as the province was finally vacated by our troops, leaving behind over 1.800 of their comrades, and having killed a mere 500 in return. It was a desperate 2-day defensive action against overwhelming numerical superiority. 2nd Army Group bought itself time, with blood. A well-rested 76 GvSD managed to slip into Domonovo (6) at 5pm, just in time to protect 5 retreating disorganised Divisions from the wrath of a pursuing Hungarian Infantry Division. Too bad for the Hungarians.

After a full three days of fighting, the men of 1 Pesi Divize had had enough. The Slovak advance into Valdemarpils (2) was halted at 9am on the 24th, at the cost of 330 Soviet, and over 900 Slovak lives. An hour later, 102 SD managed to cut off the retreat of 79 ID. This lead to the simultaneous start of 2 battles. The battle of Joniskis, (5) and that of Pasvalis (3), the former was a breakout attempt by 79 ID, assisted by 16 PzGD from the outside, the latter a 4-pronged Red Army attack to break the encircled Division once and for all. The race was on. All that was only the start of a fresh flurry of Wehrmacht activity, another attack on Kaunas (7), and an attack on Panevezys (4) went in at 11am, the former looked especially shaky, with only a single Division left in the city. The remaining 6.520 men of 79 ID surrendered at 8pm, ending the third battle of Pasvalis (3) in our favour, they had lost another 10% of their number in their final battle, with a mere 50 Soviet casualties to show for it. The spoiling attack on Panevezys (4) was halted by the Wehrmacht at the same time with casualties 4-1 in our favour. To relieve some pressure from the attack on Kaunas (7), 6 SD attacked Raseinai (9) at 10pm, forcing 14 PzD to break off it's part of the assault on the city.

The 25th started off with some bad news, Joniskis (5) had fallen, the riflemen had held the Panzer-Grenadieren at bay long enough for 79 ID to be captured, they were never going to hold back such a well-equipped formation indefinitely. Casualties were manageable at below 500, but they were 3-1 in the enemy's favour. What had seemed an easy win, soon became a tough battle due to German reinforcements. Only a fool will indefinitely fight a battle he cannot win. Domonovo (6) was vacated by our Guards riflemen at 9am, their spirits were high, and they remain a force to be reckoned with. The 5th Battle of of Kaunas (7) ended in defensive victory at 1pm. The good news continued with an offensive victory in Lida (8) at 2pm, with casualties 2-1 in our favour no less.

Three German attacks started at 8 am, just after breakfast on the 26th. A half-hearted single-Division assault on Kaunas (22) to distract 78 SD from it's attack into Raseinai (9), a two-pronged attack on 7 KavD in Alytus (10), and a two-Division foray into Nowogrodek (16), presumably to chase Novikov's Il-10s away from it's home base. The latter is protected by armoured cavalry, so it may prove a tough nut to crack. Just to be sure, 9 TD (yes, the first T-34s on the front), launched a spoiling attack into the Marshes around Grodno (14) at 10am. At 4pm, King Tigers burst into Jurmala (11) on the Southern coast of the Gulf of Riga. The rifle Division on the spot isn't fully organised, let's hope the can hold long enough to secure the retreat of 91 SD. The attack on Raseinai (9) was finally called off at 7pm. A second Panzer-Division had managed to reinforce the German defences, and victory had become unlikely to say the least. The decision came too late for over 1.000 riflemen who didn't return from the battlefield, more than twice the enemy losses.

Our Armoured Cavalry showed they were just as tough on the defensive as on the offensive, with a defensive victory in Alytus (10) against three times their number at 5am. Buoyed by that success, 7 KavD attacked across the river Memel, into the marshes at Merech (12). At noon, 7 KavD was attacked in Alytus (18) again, it had to cut short it's own offensive into Merech (12), which was just as well as the casualty ratio was particularly bad but the absolute numbers were low at about 100 dead. The battle of Jurmala (11) was also cut short, as our riflemen simply were exhausted and disorganised. They were never expected to hold back a sPzD indefinitely, just long enough to cover the retreat of 91 SD. As soon as that latter Division arrived in Jurmala (13) at 2pm and was, in turn, attacked by 1 sPzD and it's feared King Tigers, they held out until midnight, suffering 230 casualties for 30 Germans killed. In Slonim (15) 28 ID managed to sneak into the wrong province, and found itself under attack at 11pm, from 4 Red Army Divisions, of which 3 were fresh Divisions of 11ya Mot Armiya.

The 28th of July started off with good 4am news from Grodno (14), an offensive victory with roughly even casualty numbers. 10 am saw the start of a three-pronged German attack on Panevezys (17), including the feared 16. PzGD. Maj. General Tamruchi did manage to counter the high speed 'Blitz' tactics used by Höpner's forces. The battle for Slonim (15) was won decisively at 7pm. Motorised Riflemen are rushing into the province as we speak, hot on the tail of fleeing German Infantry.

Nowogrodek (16), and it's Air Base, was lost at 10pm on the 29th, after 2 days of fighting. Casualties were in the enemy's favour, but not dramatically so. Considering the enemy's numerical superiority, this went just as well as could be expected. The defeat in Panevezys (17) at 11pm was more one-sided with over 1.300 Soviet casualties, for less than 400 of the enemy. The enemy had managed to coordinate an enveloping attack on the province from three directions, including a PzGD and a PzD, to devastating effect.

The fact that our armoured Cavalry isn't unbeatable became clear once again in Alytus (18), where they were forced to retreat in the face of 2.5 times their number at 11am on the 30th, after three days of fighting. The casualty ratio was in 3-2 our favour, though, the armoured sides of the GAZ half-tracks doing their part.

As soon as 4 PzD arrived in Panevezys (21), at midnight, it was attacked by 80 SD, which had tried to beat the Panzers there. Malkowicze (19) came under attack at 4am, three Soviet Divisions defending marshland against a single German Infantry unit wasn't a massive threat, but our units were recuperating, and thus not fully organised. Colonel General Chuikov was on the scene to lead the defence, he was significantly more skilled than Generalleutnant Krüger, and managed to win the battle by 9pm, with an 8-1 advantage in casualties.

The first of August started off well with the first Soviet Attack by two Tank Divisions, on a Division of German Mountaineers in Alytus (23) at 3am, and then another T-34 charge into Grodno (20) at 4am. Our Armoured Cavalry charged into Domonovo (24) at 6am, to try and dislodge the German Infanterie-Division from the forest. It soon became clear that T-34s weren't built to fight entrenched Infantry in swaùpland, and the attack into Grodno (20) was called off after 2 hours and 18 Soviet casualties. Then, just as I was finishing up my report, the news came that the Panevezys (21) offensive had been halted. Too bad, as it had turned decidedly in our favour, having been reinforced by two Rifle Divisions since it started. Casualties were in our favour, with almost 1.000 Axis casualties, for less than 700 of our own.

GPW_AG2_42-08-01-min.jpg

Map of Moskva HQ's front line (pink). The previous report's front line is indicated in Yellow. The smaller circles indicate small scale battles (in number of troops killed).
Our T-34's are starting to arrive on the front, but German reinforcements have also been trickling into the area, time will tell whether our Armoured forces manage to make a big dent, or whether the effect will be to simply draw more German units into the area. More Axis forces are definitely arriving: Bulgarian reinforcements have been detected by signals intelligence, and Hungarians have popped up in battle a few times.

1. Jurbarkas 7 (Defence - Plains - Defeat)
21 Jul 42 22:00 - 23 Jul 42 05:00
SU: 61 SD (Art, TD - Horujenko, L2), 8 SD (Art, TD)
21.919 men /
1.847 KIA
Ger (Taurage): 162 ID (Infx2, AT, AA - Sachs, L3), 168 ID (Infx2, AT, AA), 197 ID (Infx2, AT, AA), 76 ID (Infx2, AT, AA), 57 ID (Infx2, AT, AA), 88 ID (Infx2, AT, AA), Kav-Kdo (Cavx2)
53.970 men /
536 KIA​
2. Valdemarpils (Defence - Plains - Victory)
21 Jul 42 12:00 - 24 Jul 42 09:00
SU: 16 SD (Art, AT - Klyuchko, L2, DD)
10.997 men /
1.847 KIA
Slo (Ventspils): 1 Pesi Divize (Infx3 - Kubela, L1)
8.996 men /
969 KIA​
3. Pasvalis 3 (Attack - Forest - Victory)
24 Jul 42 10:00 - 20:00
SU (Ukmerge): 235 SD (Art, AT - Malyshev, L2, BM) SU (Aizkraukle): 105 SD (Art, AT) SU (Panevezys): 43 SD (Art, AT) SU (Birzai): 80 SD (Art, AT)
43.869 men /
55 KIA
Ger: 79 ID (Infx2, AC, TD - de Angelis, L5)
7.101 men /
624 KIA / 6.520 POW​

4. Panevezys 8 (Defence - Forest - Victory)
24 Jul 42 11:00 - 20:00
SU: 6 SD (Art, AT - Tamruchi, L3), 142 SD (Art, AT), 43 SD (Art, AT)
32.992 men /
116 KIA
Ger (Siauliai): 36 ID (Infx3 - von Kempski, L4)
8.521 men / 413 KIA​

5. Joniskis (Defence - Forest - Defeat)
24 Jul 42 10:00 - 25 Jul 42 01:00
SU: 102 SD (Art, AT - Cheremisov, L2)
10.996 men /
428 KIA
Ger (Pasvalis): 79 ID (Infx2, AC, TD - de Angelis, L5) Ger (Dobele): 16 PzGD (Mec, Mot, AC, TD, SP Art - Röttiger, L3, BM)
16.099 men / 174 KIA​

6. Domonovo 3 (Defence - Forest - Defeat)
23 Jul 42 17:00 - 25 Jul 42 09:00
SU: 76 GvSD (AT, Eng - Barinov, L3)
10.992 men /
360 KIA
Hun (Swislocz): 12 Gly (Infx2 - Vastagh, L1)
5.994 men / 196 KIA
Ger (Swislocz): 9 ID (Infx3), 19 ID (Infx3)
17.993 men / 147 KIA​
7. Kaunas 5 (Defence - Urban - Fort Level 2 - Victory)
24 Jul 42 11:00 - 25 Jul 42 13:00
SU: 78 SD (Art, AT - Remizov, L4, BM)
10.998 men /
233 KIA
Ger (Ariogala): 58 ID (Infx3 - Steiner, L4, BM) Ger (Raseinai): 14 PzD (Arm, Mot, Mot-AA, Eng) Ger (Mariampolé): 7 PzD (Arm, Mot, TD, Mot-AA)
23.989 men / 380 KIA​
8. Lida 3 (Attack - Plains - Victory)
23 Jul 42 01:00 - 25 Jul 42 14:00
SU (Zabloc): 7 MSD (TD, Eng - Malyshev, L2, BM) SU (Nowogrodek): 5 KavD (L Arm, Mecx2, AC)
20.992 men / 466 KIA
Ger: 20 ID (Infx3 - Erfurth, L3)
8.995 men /
807 KIA​

9. Raseinai (Attack - Plains - Defeat)
24 Jul 42 22:00 - 26 Jul 42 19:00
SU (Panevezys): 6 SD (Art, AT - Tamruchi, L3, OD)
10.972 men /
1.015 KIA
Ger: 14 PzD (Arm, Mot, Mot-AA, Eng - Behlendorf, L4, BM), 4 PzD (Arm, Mot, AC, Eng)
15.640 men /
461 KIA​

10. Alytus 3 (Defence - Plains - Victory)
26 Jul 42 08:00 - 27 Jul 42 05:00
SU: 7 KavD (L Arm, Mecx2, AC - Levandovski, L3)
9.998 men /
73 KIA
Ger (Merech): 1 GbjD (Mtnx3, Eng - Hube, L3, BM), 225 ID (Infx2, AT, AA)
17.997 men /
219 KIA
Hun (Swislocz): 10 Gly (Infx2)
5.999 men / 87 KIA​

11. Jurmala (Defence - Plains - Defeat)
26 Jul 42 16:00 - 27 Jul 42 12:00
SU: 16 SD (Art, AT - Klyuchko, L2, DD)
10.983 men /
268 KIA
Ger (Tukums): 1 sPzD (H Arm, Mot, AC, Eng - von Thoma, L3, BM)
7.991 men /
103 KIA​

12. Merech 2 (Attack - Marsh - Defeat)
27 Jul 42 10:00 - 12:00
SU (Alytus): 7 KavD (L Arm, Mecx2, AC - Levandovski, L3)
9.925 men /
104 KIA
Ger: 1 GbjD (Mtnx3, Eng - Hube, L3, BM), 162 ID (Infx2, AT, AA), 225 ID (Infx2, AT, AA)
25.990 men /
5 KIA​

13. Jurmala 2 (Defence - Plains - Defeat)
27 Jul 42 14:00 - 28 Jul 42 00:00
SU: 91 SD (Art, AT - Kamkov, L2)
10.292 men /
231 KIA
Ger (Tukums): 1 sPzD (H Arm, Mot, AC, Eng - von Thoma, L3, BM)
7.647 men /
31 KIA​

14. Grodno 2 (Attack - Marsh - Victory)
26 Jul 42 10:00 - 28 Jul 42 04:00
SU (Zabloc): 9 TD (Arm, Motx2, TD, Eng - Beloborodov, L3)
10.992 men /
297 KIA
Ger: 209 ID (Infx2, AT, Eng - van Faber du Faur, L3)
7.934 men /
126 KIA
Hun: 10 Gly (Infx2)
5.876 men /
127 KIA​

15. Slonim (Attack - Forest - Victory)
27 Jul 42 10:00 - 28 Jul 42 19:00
SU (Korelicze): 36 MSD (SP Art, Eng - Maslennikov, L3), 57 MSD (SP Art, Eng), 3 KavD (L Arm, Mecx2, AC) SU (Lesna): 217 SD (Art, AT)
42.844 men /
134 KIA
Ger: 28 ID (Infx3 - Leeb, L4)
8.995 men /
588 KIA​

16. Nowogrodek (Defence - Forest - Defeat)
26 Jul 42 08:00 - 29 Jul 42 20:00
SU: 6 SD (Art, AT - Tamruchi, L3), 142 SD (Art, AT), 43 SD (Art, AT)
32.992 men /
116 KIA
Ger (Siauliai): 36 ID (Infx3 - von Kempski, L4)
8.521 men /
413 KIA​

17. Panevezys 9 (Defence - Forest - Defeat)
28 Jul 42 10:00 - 29 Jul 42 23:00
SU: 6 SD (Art, AT - Tamruchi, L3), 142 SD (Art, AT), 43 SD (Art, AT)
32.992 men /
116 KIA
Ger (Siauliai): 36 ID (Infx3 - von Kempski, L4)
8.521 men /
413 KIA​

18. Alytus 4 (Defence - Plains - Defeat)
27 Jul 42 12:00 - 30 Jul 42 11:00
SU: 7 KavD (L Arm, Mecx2, AC - Levandovski, L3)
9.821 men /
605 KIA
Ger (Mariampolé - River Crossing): 170 ID (Infx2, Art, AT - Krüger W., L3, BM) Ger (Merech - River Crossing): 225 ID (Infx2, Art, AT), 1 GbjD (Mtnx3, Eng)
25.908 men /
905 KIA​

19. Malkowicze (Defence - Marsh - Victory)
31 Jul 42 04:00 - 21:00
SU: 11 Mot. Armiya (HQ - Chuikov, L4, DD), 31 SD (Art, TD), 14 TTGvD (H Arm, Gdsx2, Art, Eng), I SK (HQ, Infx2, AT)
30.075 men /
105 KIA
Ger (Domonovo): 19 ID (Infx3 - Krüger W., L3, BM)
8.996 men /
849 KIA​

20. Grodno 2 (Attack - Marsh - Defeat)
01 Aug 42 04:00 - 06:00
SU (Zabloc): 15 TD (Arm, Motx2, TD, Eng - Cherniakovskij, L3)
10.999 men /
18 KIA
Ger: 86 ID (Infx2, AC, AT - v Langermann und Erlenkamp, L2, BM)
7.998 men /
8 KIA​

21. Panevezys 10 (Attack - Forest - Defeat)
30 Jul 42 00:00 - 01 Aug 42 18:00
SU (Pasvalis): 80 SD (Art, AT - Feklenko, L2), 43 SD (Art, AT), 105 SD (Art, AT)
43.957 men /
677 KIA
Ger: 4 PzD (Arm, Mot, AC, Eng - Hammer, L2)
7.714 men /
964 KIA​
Southern German Front (3 AG & 4 AG / Brjansk HQ & Odessa HQ):

germans-surrendering-to-soviet-troops-min.jpg

German Panzer-Grenadieren surrender to Soviet Riflemen in Sambor, they're part of Maj. General von Manstein's 10 PzD. They overextended so much they found themselves cut off from their own lines by riflemen on foot. I guess the shoe's on the other foot now. I'm sure Germany won't miss those shiny new Panzer IV's.
Another German probe on Turka (1) started at 7pm on the 22nd, and was called off 2 hours later with few losses on our side. There was more good news at 10pm, when the Germans retreated from Rozyszcze (2) after a tough three day battle resulting over 500 dead soviets, and over 900 dead Germans. The celebrations were still ongoing at midnight, when another Infanterie-Division managed to sneak into the province before we could occupy it, prompting another battle for Rozyszcze (5).

At 6pm the next day, came the news of a decisive Soviet victory in Zolkiew (3). German units, including King Tigers have been ousted from the province, with heavy casualties almost 2-1 in our favour. An hour later, one of our Rifle Divisions attacked an out of supply Italian Infantry Division in Kowel (8).

It was until 9pm on the 24th before things developed in the South. The titanic struggle to take back Jaworow (4), with Heavy tanks on both sides, had come to an end, after 2 days of intense fighting, we had won, it had cost us about 2500 lives for 1800 of the enemy, but is was a victory nonetheless. At the same time, the battle for Rozyszcze (5) ended in a clear victory, with casualties nearly 3-1 in our favour.

After retreating eastward instead of westward in the aftermath of the battle of Jaworow (4), 10 PzD found itself in Sambor (6) on the 25th of July, where it was promptly attacked, at 3pm, by a fresh Soviet Rifle Division. Maj. General Model's Panzer Division was at risk of being encircled. They had to break contact and get back to Jaworow (4). The Wehrmacht continued to probe further East in the centre of the front, attacking into Konczyce (7), which was held by a half-organised rifle Division.

The 26th of July started with 2 German attacks at 4am, one on Turka (11), and one on Rozyscze (9), we had superior numbers in both cases, but in the latter case, our troops were tired from previous fighting, but not exhausted. 10 PzD had found itself entirely cut off, by 4am, and as the encircled 10 PzD's situation became desperate, the Wehrmacht pulled out all the stops to try and save Model's Division, striking Jaworow (10) and Lwow (12) simultaneously at 8am. 10 PzD's 5.729 remaining men surrendered at 6pm in Sambor (6). With no way out, no spare parts or Ammunition for their fighting vehicles, and no rations, the only option was to give up. They did put up one hell of a fight right up until their surrender, with a casualty ratio of 4-1 in their favour in their final battle. Midnight brought some mixed news. Konczyce (7) had fallen, but casualties were in our favour.

Three days of fighting in Kowel (8) ended with the Red Army halting it's offensive at 2am on the 27th, after the Italians were reinforced by German Motorised Infantry. Casualties were in 2-1 in our favour. At 4am, after 24 hours of fighting, our defences in Rozyszcze (9) repelled the German offensive targetting them, all for the price of 200 dead riflemen, and three times as many Wehrmacht personnel. 3rd Army Group proceeded to take the initiative, attacking Luboml (15) as the battle for Rozyszcze (9) ended. Around tea-time, 33 SD managed to sneak into Janow (14) before German Infantry managed to take the province unopposed. This was little more than a delaying action as our riflemen where quite tired from previous fighting already.

Jaworow (10) was lost at 8am on the 28th, with over 1.100 Soviet Casualties, and less than 250 German ones. Our riflemen had held on for a lot longer than expected, in the face of overwhelming numbers and Heavy Tanks. As 62 SD retreated into Lwow (12), it became even more important to hold the city. Later in the day, it would become clear that 2 SD, which had been in reserve for the battle of Jaworow (10), had withdrawn the wrong way, swept up in the panicky retreat of 62 SD, they moved towards the west, where they found themselves surrounded by Germans and had to surrender. Another 10.994 can be added to the list of likely POWs. Then there was some good news from Turka (11), The province had been held once again, with casualties 5-1 in our favour. Another province that held fast was Lwow (12), where a thinned defensive line managed to keep 11 PzD at bay for two days despite an initial shortage of ammunition and other supplies, until the attackers relented at 10am. The Axis couldn't help itself and attacked Turka (13) again one hour later, with King Tigers attempting to cross the river San under fire. Unsurprisingly, this latest attack petered out by 3pm, with over 200 axis casualties for less than 50 of our own.

The 29th started off with yet another attack on Turka (16), starting at 5am. A single Panzer-Division across the river San was unlikely to make much of a dent.

Janow (14) was lost at 11am on the 30th, our riflemen were too exhausted to continue to offer resistance after three days of struggle. Casualties were 3-1 in our favour, with 'only' 215 Soviet lives lost.

Exactly one day later, at 11am, 3rd AG could celebrate a hard-fought offensive victory in Luboml (15). The 4 day battle cost 1.800 German and close to 1400 Soviet lives. 169 SD managed to slip into Zamosc (), part of Western Poland, at 3pm. The riflemen immediately came under fire, from Bulgarian Infantry.

The new month started out with a 5am victory in Turka (16). After three days of fighting one Panzer-Division after another in their attempts to cross the San river, the defenders held, and the Panzers stopped trying. Casualties were 3-1 in our favour, with almost 1.500 killed Germans. Another single-Division attack on Lwow (17) started at 6am. This time 4 LeichteD was having a go. 10 TTGvD was temporarily reinforced by a very disorganised 62 SD. Turka (18) came under attack again, at 7am, for the 11th time. At the same time, 122 SD attacked three German Divisions, including a PzD, in Przemysl (21), on it's own. This wasn't as mad as it sounded, as this attack would distract 4 LeichteD from it's push into Lwow (17). Then, at 9am, 42 SD re-occupied Sambor (), where It was promptly attacked by German tanks and Bulgarian Infantry. Luckily, our riflemen had the river Dniestr to aid them in their defence. 10 am saw the end of both the battle for Lwow (17), and the latest battle for Turka (18). For both defensive victories, enemy casualties were an order of magnitude higher than ours.

After lunch, at 1pm, 3 Rifle Divisions launched an offensive from Turka into Jaworow (19). Hitting the flank of the axis attackers of Sambor (22). It was called off at 6pm, and that was just as well, as casualties were not in our favour, our riflemen losing over 400 of their number for about half as many Axis soldiers killed.

GPW_AG3_42-08-01-min.jpg

Map of Brjansk HQ's front line (blue). The previous report's front line is indicated in Yellow. The smaller circles indicate small scale battles (in number of troops killed).
Things have somewhat stabilised, and with several successful counter-attacks, the Red Army has taken back some initiative. Bulgarian troops have been met in battle, as well as more Italians. Of course, any Bulgarian Division on the main front isn't defending it's homeland, opening up an opportunity for a future surprise invasion of Bulgaria.

1. Turka 7 (Defence - Forest - Victory)
22 Jul 42 19:00 - 21:00
SU: 48 SD (Art, AT - Mitrofanov, L2, BM), 10 SD (Art, TD), 56 SD (Art, AT), 181 SD (Art, AT), 180 SD (Art, AT)
54.247 men /
22 KIA
Ger (Gorlice - River Crossing): 216 ID (Infx2, AC, AT - Völckers, L3, OD), 228 ID (Infx2, AC, AT)
15.992 men /
151 KIA​

2. Rozyszcze 2 (Attack - Forest - Victory)
20 Jul 42 12:00 - 22 Jul 42 22:00
SU (Kamien Koszyrski): 104 SD (Art, AT - Tiulenev, L3) SU (Poryck): 87 SD (Art, TD)
21.887 men /
554 KIA
Ger: 45 ID (Infx2, AC, AT - Felber, L3)
7.998 men /
951 KIA​

3. Zolkiew 3 (Attack - Plains - Victory)
21 Jul 42 04:00 - 23 Jul 42 18:00
SU (Wlodzimierz Wolynski - River Crossing): 122 SD (Art, AT - Nikishin, L3) SU (Lwow): 169 SD (Art, AT) SU (Krasne): 72 GvSD (AT, Eng)
32.988 men /
658 KIA
Ger: 6 sPzD (HArm, Mot, TD, Mot-AA - Angern, L3, BM), 95 ID (Infx2, AC, AT)
13.914 men /
756 KIA
Hun: 9 Gly (Infx2)
5.218 men /
378 KIA​

4. Jaworow 8 (Attack - Plains - Victory)
22 Jul 42 04:00 - 24 Jul 42 21:00
SU (Lwow): 72 GvSD (AT, Eng - Badanov, L3, BM), 10 TTGvD (H Arm, Gdsx2, Art, Eng) SU (Turka): 10 SD (Art, TD)
43.982 men /
2.498 KIA
Ger: 93 ID (Infx2, AT, Art - von Bismarck, L2, BM), 10 PzD (Arm, Mot, TD, AC - Model, L6, BM, DD), SS-Verf (WSS),
2 sPzD (HArm, Mot, AC, Mot-AA), 10 PzD (Arm, Mot, TD, AC)
24.699 men / 1.804 KIA​

5. Rozyszcze 3 (Attack - Forest - Victory)
23 Jul 42 00:00 - 24 Jul 42 21:00
SU (Kamien Koszyrski): 104 SD (Art, AT - Tiulenev, L3) SU (Poryck): 87 SD (Art, TD) SU (Luck): 113 SD (Art, AT)
32.270 men /
396 KIA
Ger: 62 ID (Infx2, AT, Eng - von Knobelsdorff, L4, BM)
7.996 men /
1.051 KIA​

6. Sambor (Attack - Woods - Victory)
25 Jul 42 15:00 - 26 Jul 42 18:00
SU (Turka): 27 SD (Art, AT - Mitrofanov, L2, BM) SU (Stryj): 74 SD (Art, AT)
20.918 men /
474 KIA
Ger: 10 PzD (Arm, Mot, TD, AC - Model, L6, BM, DD)
6.091 men /
160 KIA / 5.729 POW​

7. Konczyce (Defence - Forest - Defeat)
25 Jul 42 19:00 - 27 Jul 42 00:00
SU: 5 SD (Art, AT - Zhmachenko, L3)
10.995 men /
173 KIA
Ger (Bereza): 18 ID (Infx3 - Koch-Erpach, L4)
8.998 men /
307 KIA​

8. Kowel 3 (Attack - Forest - Defeat)
23 Jul 42 19:00 - 27 Jul 42 02:00
SU (Kamien Koszyrski): 130 SD (Art, AT - Petin, L2)
10.994 men /
269 KIA
Ger: 2 ID(mot) (Motx2, TD, Eng)
7.988 men /
437 KIA
Ita: 41a DF (Infx2 - Gariboldi, L1)
5.989 men /
219 KIA​

9. Rozyszcze 4 (Defence- Forest - Victory)
26 Jul 42 04:00 - 27 Jul 42 04:00
SU: 104 SD (Art, AT - Tiulenev, L3), 87 SD (Art, TD)
21.620 men /
208 KIA
Ger (Bereza): 60 ID (Infx2, AC, AT - Raus, L3, BM)
7.998 men /
600 KIA​

10. Jaworow 9 (Defence - Plains - Defeat)
26 Jul 42 08:00 - 28 Jul 42 08:00
SU: 62 SD (Art, AT - Rogachev, L2, Trk), 2 SD (Art, AT)
21.991 men /
1.178 KIA / 10.994 POW
Ger (Jaroslaw - River Crossing): 2 sPzD (HArm, Mot, AC, Mot-AA - Jodl A., L4, OD), SSD 'LSAH' (WSSx2, AC, Mot-AA)
Ger (
Przemysl): 93 ID (Infx2, AC, AT)
22.201 men /
237 KIA​

11. Turka 8 (Defence - Forest - Victory)
26 Jul 42 04:00 - 28 Jul 42 09:00
SU: 48 SD (Art, AT - Mitrofanov, L2, BM), 10 SD (Art, TD), 56 SD (Art, AT), 181 SD (Art, AT), 180 SD (Art, AT)
54.008 men /
333 KIA
Ger (Gorlice - River Crossing): 216 ID (Infx2, AC, AT - Völckers, L3, OD), 228 ID (Infx2, AC, AT)
15.989 men /
1.599 KIA​

12. Lwow 7 (Defence - Urban - Fort Level 2 - Low Supplies - Victory)
26 Jul 42 08:00 - 28 Jul 42 10:00
SU: XXIX GvSK (HQ, Gdsx2, AT - Popov M.M., DD), 10 TTGvD (H Arm, Gdsx2, Art, Eng - Novikov N.A., L3, BM)
18.722 men /
180 KIA
Ger (Przemysl): 11 PzD (Arm, Mot, Mot-AA, Eng - Heinrici, L5, BM)
7.995 men /
518 KIA​

13. Turka 9 (Defence - Forest - Victory)
28 Jul 42 11:00 - 15:00
SU: 48 SD (Art, AT - Mitrofanov, L2, BM), 10 SD (Art, TD), 56 SD (Art, AT), 181 SD (Art, AT), 180 SD (Art, AT)
53.993 men /
44 KIA
Ger (Gorlice - River Crossing): 4 sPzD (HArm, Mot, AC, Eng - von Cochenhausen, L3, Eng)
7.996 men /
101 KIA
Hun (Uzhorod): 29 TP (Infx2, AT, AA)
7.997 men /
102 KIA​

14. Janow (Defence - Forest - Defeat)
27 Jul 42 18:00 - 30 Jul 42 11:00
SU: 33 SD (Art, AT - Kholostyakov, L2)
10.388 men /
215 KIA
Ger (Dywin): 214 ID (Infx2, AT, AA - von und zu Grote, L3)
7.975 men /
686 KIA​
15. Luboml 5 (Attack - Woods - Victory)
27 Jul 42 04:00 - 31 Jul 42 11:00
SU (Poryck): 14 SD (Art, AT - Trofimenko, L3) SU (Wlodzimierz Wolynski): 74 SD (Art, AT - Lazarev, L3, BM)
21.988 men /
1.385 KIA
Ger: 60 ID (Infx2, AC, AT - Raus, L3, BM), 231 ID (Infx2, AC, Eng), 45 ID (Infx2, AC, AT), 231 ID (Infx2, AT, Eng)
6.091 men /
160 KIA​

16. Turka 10 (Defence - Forest - Low Supplies - Victory)
29 Jul 42 05:00 - 01 Aug 42 05:00
SU: 48 SD (Art, AT - Mitrofanov, L2, BM), 10 SD (Art, TD), 56 SD (Art, AT), 181 SD (Art, AT), 180 SD (Art, AT)
53.488 men /
506 KIA
Ger (Gorlice - River Crossing): 3 PzD (L Armx2, Mot, Eng - von Manstein, L7, OD, BM, Trk), 4 sPzD (HArm, Mot, AC, Eng),
8 PzD (Arm, Mot, AC, Mot-AA - Kirchner, L4, BM)
33.982 men / 1.497 KIA​

17. Lwow 8 (Defence - Urban - Fort Level 2 - Victory)
01 Aug 42 06:00 - 09:00
SU: 62 SD (Art, AT - Rogachev, L2, Trk), 10 TTGvD (H Arm, Gdsx2, Art, Eng)
21.183 men /
17 KIA
Ger (Przemysl): 4 LeichteD (Motx2, AC - Geib, L4, DD)
6.996 men /
129 KIA​

18. Turka 11 (Defence - Forest - Low Supplies - Victory)
01 Aug 42 07:00 - 09:00
SU: 48 SD (Art, AT - Mitrofanov, L2, BM), 10 SD (Art, TD), 56 SD (Art, AT), 181 SD (Art, AT), 180 SD (Art, AT)
52.439 men /
7 KIA
Ger (Gorlice - River Crossing): 216 ID (Infx2, AC, AT - Völckers, L3, OD)
7.997 men /
205 KIA​

19. Jaworow 10 (Attack - Plains - Defeat)
01 Aug 42 13:00 - 18:00
SU (Zolkiew): 56 SD (Art, AT - Novikov V. V., L3, BM)
10.937 men /
410 KIA
Ger: 2 sPzD (HArm, Mot, AC, Mot-AA - Jodl A., L4, OD), SSD 'LSAH' (WSSx2, AC, Mot-AA), 5 PzD (Arm, Mot, SP Art, TD)
23.023 men /
162 KIA
Bul: 11-va ZP (Infx2, ??)
7.675 men /
48 KIA​
Hungarian Front (3 AG & 4 AG / Brjansk HQ & Odessa HQ):


Drohobycz (1) was first on the Hungarian Army's hit-list, the 10th attack on the province started at 7pm on the 22nd of July, and ended 2 hours later with little effect on the more numerous and entrenched defenders.

Things stayed quiet until the 11th Hungarian offensive on Drohobycz (4) started at 10am on the 25th of July.

The 28th saw some more action as Hungarian forces charged across the Western Bug into Husiatyn (2) at 11am, with both numbers, and the river, working in our favour, it took just an hour for the Hungarians to call off the attack. Casualties were 102-1, with only a single unlucky rifleman that got killed.

Dolina (3) came under fire at 5am on the 29th, after less than an hour, the Hungarians thought better of their offensive, ending a battle they couldn't hope to win with less than 30 Hungarian casualties.

Due in large part to a lack of supplies on our side, our defeat, after 5 days of fighting in the 11th defensive battle for Drohobycz (4) was still somewhat unexpected when it was announced at 6am on the 30th. Casualties were over 3.000 in total, and nearly 2-1 in our favour. The reinforcement of the Hungarian attack by 2 fresh Divisions is what finally tipped the balance in the enemy's favour.

For the Hungarian front, the month of August started off with a 6am Soviet offensive into the hills of Svalava (5) started. With our riflemen outnumbered 2-1, we had to hope their superior equipment would save the day, a doubtful proposition. There was more action as 51 SD managed to slip into Stanislawow (), after the Hungarian Army had left it unoccupied. As our riflemen got there, they came under fire from three directions, as the Hungarians were also moving several units into the city and the surrounding forests. As it dragged on, the battle for Svalava (5) took a turn for the worst, our riflemen got bogged down and casualties were rapidly mounting. 4ya Armiya called it a day at 3pm, having lost nearly 450 riflemen, and the Hungarians barely more than a third that many.

GPW_AG4_42-08-01-min.jpg

Map of 4ya Armiya's front line (teal). The smaller circles indicate small scale battles (in number of troops killed).
The Hungarian Army continues to be thorn in our side. 4ya Armiya did recover Stanislawow, but the city is already contested, and no reinforcements seem to be forthcoming, not on our side anyway. Hungarian attacks continue to chip away at our defences, with our defenders sometimes plagued by supply issues as well. How long will it take for them to poke another hole in our line? Or maybe, 4ya Armiya will see the light and attempt to cut off Hungarian troops in the Eastern Salient around Stanislawow.

1. Drohobycz 10 (Defence - Forest - Victory)
22 Jul 42 19:00 - 21:00
SU: 27 SD (Art, AT - Vinogradov, L2), 183 SD (Art, AT), 176 SD (AT)
31.906 men /
40 KIA
Hun (Svalava): 24 Gly (Infx2, AT, AA - Stomm, L3, BM), 30 TP (Infx2, Art, AT)
15.991 men /
137 KIA​

2. Husiatyn (Defence - Plains - Victory)
28 Jul 42 11:00 - 12:00
SU: 24 SD (Art, AT - Makeev, L2), 141 SD (Art, TD)
21.814 men /
1 KIA
Hun (Kolomyja): 13 Gly (Infx2 - Barabas, L1)
5.996 men /
102 KIA​

3. Dolina 2 (Defence - Forest - Victory)
29 Jul 42 05:00
SU: 121 SD (Art, TD - Larichev, L2, DD), 55 SD (Art, AT)
21.992 men /
7 KIA
Hun (Svalava): 31 TP (Infx2, AT, AA - Decleva, L2), 'Szent Laszlo' Ply (Infx2, AT, AA)
15.995 men /
28 KIA​

4. Drohobycz 11 (Defence - Forest - Defeat)
25 Jul 42 10:00 - 30 Jul 42 06:00
SU: 27 SD (Art, AT - Vinogradov, L2), 183 SD (Art, AT), 176 SD (AT)
32.044 men /
1.404 KIA
Hun (Uzhorod): 25 Gly (Infx2, AC, AT - Kiss L., L2), 16 Gly (Infx2, AC, AT), 20 Gly (Infx2, AC, AT), 32 TP (Infx2, Art, AT)
39.990 men /
2.607 KIA​

5. Svalava 2 (Attack - Hills - Defeat)
01 Aug 42 06:00 - 15:00
SU (Skole): 182 SD (Art, TD - Ermakov, L2), 143 SD (Art, AT)
21.946 men /
445 KIA
Hun: 32 TP (Infx2, Art, AT - Brunswik, L1), 4 TP (Infx2, Art, AT), 27 Gly (Infx2, AC, AT), 24 Gly (Infx2, AT, AA), 30 TP (Infx2, Art, AT)
45.993 men /
157 KIA​
Bombardment:


Ju-88A4Crashed2-min.jpg

The wreckage of one of the many Ju-88A-4's that were shot down over Pasvalis. This was a rare case where German bombers managed to do some damage on the ground. Of course, they paid a heavy price.
7 Bomber and Assault Aviation Divisions were deployed and have been flying Ground Attack missions in support of ground troops. All of the raids were flown during daytime to allow the units some time to repair and recuperate, as dedicated German AAA regiments are quite prevalent amongst German Divisions. IV IAK-PVO also took part in a bombing raid of it's own initiative, thought the Yak-7s are utterly unsuited for attacking targets on the ground, and the resulting German casualties were insignificant.

- Province (Number of Missions / Aircraft lost / Bombing casualties)
I BAK - Ftr, Tacx2 - 124 La-7, 200 Yak-4 - 524 airmen - Kyiv - Lt. Gen. Av. Golovanov, L3-4, CB

- Taurage (2 / 40 / 473)
- Zelva (2 / 1 / 304)
- Dywin (1 / 2 / 171)
- Luboml (1 / 1 / 200)
- Svalava (1 / 1 / 77)

II BAK - Ftr, Tacx2 - 124 La-7, 200 Yak-4 - 524 airmen - Homel - Lt. Gen. Av. Yakovlev, L3-4, TB

- Stanislawow (3 / 4 / 518)
- Kowel (4 / 4 / 959)
- Uzhorod (1 / 26 / 115)

II ShAK - Ftr, CASx2 - 124 La-7, 248 Il-10 - 620 airmen - Vitsyebsk - Chief Marshall Av. Novikov, L3, TB

- Lida (3 / 1 / 245)
- Swislocz (6 / 7 / 833)
- Bereza (3 / 2 / 207)
- Zelva (3 / 75 / 232)

IV ShAK - Ftr, CASx2 - 124 La-7, 248 Il-10 - 620 airmen - Kyiv - Lt. Gen. Av. Rudenko, L2, TB

- Jaworow (9 / 19 / 1.477)
- Przemysl (3 / 7 / 217)

I ShAK - Ftr, CASx2 - 124 La-7, 248 Il-10 - 1.296 airmen - Kyiv - Lt. Gen. Av. Zhigarev, L3, TB

- Rozyszcze (3 / 0 / 287)
- Sambor (3 / 0 / 202)
- Przemysl (2 / 3 / 274)
- Uzhorod (1 / 19 / 134)

V ShAK - Ftr, CASx2 - 124 La-7, 248 Il-10 - 620 airmen - Kaunas - Lt. Gen. Av. Goryunov, L2

- Dobele (2 / 1 / 214)
- Tukums (3 / 1 / 403)
- Ariogala (2 / 7 / 148)
- Raseinai (2 / 3 / 280)
- Joniskis (2 / 13 / 166)

III ShAK - Ftr, CASx2 - 124 La-7, 248 Il-10 - 620 airmen - Riga - Lt. Gen. Av. Kutakhov, L3, TB

- Raseinai (8 / 20 / 1.129)
- Jurbarkas (6 / 25 / 707)
- Mariampolé (6 / 20 / 998)

III IAK - Intx4 - 496 Yak-7 - 496 airmen - Homel - Lt. Gen. Av. Vorozheikin, L4

- Zelva (1 / 1 / 6)

VII IAK - Intx4 - 496 Yak-7 - 496 airmen - Moskva - Lt. Gen. Av. Eremin, L3

- Joniskis (1 / 0 / 5)​


With both 1 DBAD and 2 DBAD in action, even more damage could be done with Logistical strikes. After infrastructure in Brzesc-Litewski was reduced to pre-historic levels. Logistical Strikes on Switaz started, in an attempt to avoid another breakthrough across the Bug river :

- Province (Number of Missions / Aircraft lost / Heavy AAA guns destroyed (10 AA guns / Level) / Infra damage / Supplies destroyed (Tonnes) / Fuel destroyed (cubic metres))

I DBAK - Str - 162 TB-3 - 648 airmen - Homel - Lt. Gen. Av. Kalinin, L2

- Switaz (6 / 3 / 0 / 3,0 / 191 / 11.185)
- Wolkowysk (6 / 0 / 0 / 4,8 / 34.990 / 10.382)
- Jaworow (2 / 3 / 0 / 2,3 / 23.807 / 74.316)​

Three Axis bombing missions managed to kill Soviet Servicemen on the ground, right before being intercepted by the VVS, the others were intercepted before they could do any damage.

- Province (Number of Missions / Aircraft lost / Bombing casualties)

Luftflotte 'Mahnke' - Ftr, Tacx2 - 112 FW-190D, 174 Ju-88A-4 - 808 airmen - Genlt. Mahnke, L3, SAT

- Kaunas (1 / 38 / 149)

Luftflotte 'Bülowius' - Ftr, Tacx2 - 106 FW-190D, 173 Ju-88A-4 - 798 airmen - Genlt. Bülowius, L4, TB

- Kaunas (1 / 53 / 190)

Luftflotte 'Dörstling' - Ftr, Tacx2 - 84 FW-190D, 186 Ju-88A-4 - 828 airmen - Genlt. Dörstling, L3

- Pasvalis (1 / 47 / 190)​

Bombing Totals (last 10 days):

SU Bombing losses: 529 KIA
VMF (Surface Fleet) losses: CA -8% / 106 KIA
Axis Bombing losses: 10.964 KIA / 3 AAA guns / 10,07 Infra / 59,0 Supplies / 95,9 Fuel / 2,4 Naval Bases
Map of Bombings and Air Battles over the main front. Each bomb stands for one day of bombing missions, with the size of the bombs indicating the size of the Aeroplanes dropping them. 50 kg for CAS, 100 kg for Tac, and 500 kg for Str. (the latter is not to scale). The counters indicate where various wings are based, and the Yak-7 silhouettes with numbers on the wings indicate the Aerial Battles.
GPW_VVS_42-08-01-min.jpg

Map of Bombings and Air Battles over the main front. Each bomb stands for one day of bombing missions, with the size of the bombs indicating the size of the Aeroplanes dropping them. 50 kg for CAS, 100 kg for Tac, and 500 kg for Str. (the latter is not to scale). The counters indicate where various wings are based, and the Yak-7 silhouettes with numbers on the wings indicate the Aerial Battles.

Air Battles:
1. Taurage (Luftwaffe Intercept - Victory)
22 Jul 42 20:00 - 00:00
VVS: I BAK - Ftr, Tacx2 - 121 La-7, 198 Yak-4 - 517 airmen - Homel - Lt. Gen. Av. Golovanov, L4, CB
IV IAK-PVO - Intx4 - 496 Yak-7 - 496 airmen - Kaunas - Lt. Gen. Av. Rychagov, L2, SAT
815 planes / 1.013 airmen /
40 downed / 56 KIA
Luftwaffe: JG 2, JG 26, JG 109 - Intx3 - 333 Me-109G - 333 airmen - ? - Genlt. Klepke, L3, SAT
333 planes / 333 airmen /
25 downed / 25 KIA​

2. Kamien Koszyrski (Soviet Intercept - Victory)
22 Jul 42 20:00 - 00:00
VVS: VI IAK - Intx4 - 496 Yak-7 - 496 airmen - Lwow - Lt. Gen. Av. Rog, L3
496 planes / 496 airmen /
6 downed / 6 KIA
Luftwaffe: StG 1, SkG 1 - CASx3 - 223 Hs-129 - 223 airmen - ? - Genlt. Kitzinger, L4
223 planes / 223 airmen /
42 downed / 42 KIA​

4. Mariampolé (Soviet Intercept - Victory)
26 Jul 42 17:00 - 21:00
VVS: IV IAK-PVO - Intx4 - 496 Yak-7 - 496 airmen - Kaunas - Lt. Gen. Av. Rychagov, L2, SAT
496 planes / 496 airmen /
5 downed / 5 KIA
Luftwaffe: KG 28, KG 51 - Tacx2 - 176 Ju-88A-4 - 704 airmen - ? - Reichsmarschall Göring, L3, CB
176 planes / 704 airmen /
12 downed / 48 KIA​

6. Uzhorod (Hungarian Intercept - Victory)
27 Jul 42 08:00 - 12:00
VVS: II BAK - Ftr, Tacx2 - 124 La-7, 200 Yak-4 - 524 airmen - Homel - Lt. Gen. Av. Yakovlev, L4, TB
II IAK-PVO - Intx4 - 496 Yak-7 - 496 airmen - Lwow - Lt. Gen. Av. Astakhov, L4
820 planes / 1.020 airmen /
26 downed / 50 KIA
RHAF: I Vly, I Ely, II Ely - Intx3 - 372 CR.32 - 372 airmen - ? - Vezds. (Lt. Gen. Av.) Rakösi, L1
372 planes / 372 airmen /
67 downed / 67 KIA​

7. Zelva (Luftwaffe Intercept - Victory)
27 Jul 42 17:00 - 20:00
VVS: II ShAK - Ftr, CASx2 - 124 La-7, 248 Il-10 - 620 airmen - Nowogrodek - Chief Marshall. Av. Novikov, L3, TB
III IAK - Intx4 - 496 Yak-7 - 496 airmen - Homel - Lt. Gen. Av. Vorozheikin, L4
868 planes / 1.116 airmen /
75 downed / 127 KIA
Luftwaffe: JG 2, JG 26, JG 109 - Intx3 - 317 Me-109G - 317 airmen - ? - Genlt. Klepke, L3, SAT
317 planes / 317 airmen /
21 downed / 21 KIA​

8. Kaunas (Soviet Intercept - Victory)
28 Jul 42 05:00 - 09:00
VVS: IV IAK-PVO - Intx4 - 496 Yak-7 - 496 airmen - Kaunas - Lt. Gen. Av. Rychagov, L2, SAT
496 planes / 496 airmen /
17 downed / 17 KIA
Luftwaffe: JG 54, KG 26, KG 27 - Ftr, Tacx2 - 112 FW-190D, 174 Ju-88A-4 - 808 airmen - ? - Genlt. Mahnke, L3, SAT
286 planes / 808 airmen /
38 downed / 54 KIA​

9. Uzhorod (Hungarian Intercept - Victory)
29 Jul 42 07:00 - 10:00
VVS: I ShAK - Ftr, CASx2 - 123 La-7, 245 Il-10 - 613 airmen - Lwow - Lt. Gen. Av. Zhigarev, L3, TB
II IAK-PVO - Intx4 - 496 Yak-7 - 496 airmen - Lwow - Lt. Gen. Av. Astakhov, L4
864 planes / 1.109 airmen /
19 downed / 29 KIA
RHAF: I Vly, I Ely, II Ely - Intx3 - 316 CR.32 - 316 airmen - ? - Vezds. (Lt. Gen. Av.) Rakösi, L1
316 planes / 316 airmen /
31 downed / 31 KIA​

10. Joniskis (Luftwaffe Intercept - Victory)
29 Jul 42 08:00 - 11:00
VVS: V ShAK - Ftr, CASx2 - 121 La-7, 245 Il-10 - 611 airmen - Nowogrodek - Lt. Gen. Av. Goryunov, L2
VII IAK - Intx4 - 496 Yak-7 - 496 airmen - Rezekne - Lt. Gen. Av. Eremin, L3
862 planes / 1.107 airmen /
13 downed / 14 KIA
Luftwaffe: JG 4 - Int - 71 Me-109G - 71 airmen - ? - Genmaj. Fisser, L1, SAT
71 planes / 71 airmen /
24 downed / 24 KIA​
13. Kaunas (Soviet Intercept - Victory)
30 Jul 42 17:00 - 20:00
VVS: VII IAK - Intx4 - 496 Yak-7 - 496 airmen - Rezekne - Lt. Gen. Av. Eremin, L3
496 planes / 496 airmen /
27 downed / 27 KIA
Luftwaffe: JG 106, KG 54, KG 55 - Ftr, Tacx2 - 106 FW-190D, 173 Ju-88A-4 - 452 airmen - ? - Genlt. Bülowius, L4, TB
279 planes / 452 airmen /
53 downed / 79 KIA​

14. Pasvalis (Soviet Intercept - Victory)
31 Jul 42 05:00 - 07:00
VVS: VII IAK - Intx4 - 471 Yak-7 - 471 airmen - Rezekne - Lt. Gen. Av. Eremin, L3
471 planes / 471 airmen /
23 downed / 23 KIA
Luftwaffe: JG 50, KG 50, KG 76 - Ftr, Tacx2 - 84 FW-190D, 186 Ju-88A-4 - 828 airmen - ? - Genlt. Dörstling, L3
270 planes / 828 airmen /
47 downed / 93 KIA​

Air Totals (last 10 days):

VVS: 11 battles / 82 Ground Attack / 14 Log. Bomb. / 403 (46 Yak-4, 133 Il-10, 120 La-7, 98 Yak-7, 6 TB-3, 0 Li-2) / 624 KIA
VMF (Air Fleet): 5 battles / 5 Port strike / 20 (10 La-7VM, 10 Il-10VM) / 30 KIA
Total SU: 15 battles / 82 Grd Attack / 14 Log. Bomb. / 423 / 654 KIA
Luftwaffe: 10 battles / 3 Ground Attack / 1 Naval Strike / 271 (74 Me-109G, 50 FW-190D, 100 Ju-88A-4, 5 Ju-290A, 42 Hs-129) / 611 KIA
RHAF: 2 battles / 98 (98 CR.32) / 98 KIA
RBAF: 3 battles / 33 (33 He-51) / 33 KIA
Axis: 15 Battles / 1 Naval Strike / 402 / 742 KIA​
Air Totals (GPW - Last 40 days):

VVS: 33 battles / 448 Ground Attack / 44 Log. Bomb. / 1.802 (262 Yak-4, 515 Il-10, 626 La-7, 338 Yak-7, 14 TB-3, 47 Li-2) / 2.724 KIA
VMF (Air Fleet): 17 battles / 1 Naval Strike / 5 Port Strikes / 465 (232 La-7VM, 233 Il-10VM) / 698 KIA
Total SU: 44 battles / 448 Grd Attack / 44 Log. Bomb / 1 Naval Strike / 9 Port strike / 2.267 / 3.422 KIA
Luftwaffe: 35 battles / 6 Ground Attacks / 7 Naval strikes / 1.342 (379 Me-109G, 408 FW-190D, 477 Ju-88A-4, 36 Ju-290A, 42 Hs-129) / 3.061 KIA
RHAF: 6 battles / 305 (158 Ju-87, 188 Ju-86K-2, 132 CR.32) / 478 KIA
RBAF: 3 battles / 33 (33 He-51) / 33 KIA
Axis: 44 Battles / 6 Ground Attacks / 7 Naval Strikes / 1.680 / 3.572 KIA​

Mediterranean (Odessa HQ):


At 7am, on the 29th of July, the Leninets-class (Series II) submarines of VIII Flot Podlodok were the unlikely actors of our first naval victory in the Mediterranean. Catching a fleet of 10 already damaged Italian troop transports by surprise in the Eastern Ionian Sea, they inflicted further damage on them, sinking 2 troop transports. The ships were filled with Italian troops, but they were able to save the vast majority of them, and load them onto the remaining ships. Out of torpedoes, our submariners went their merry way after confirming to the Navy HQ in Mythiléné that the transports were headed into the small port of Patra. Probably to offload the troops and start some hasty repairs to the remaining ships.

Counter Admiral Golovko, of I Avianosets Flote, thought otherwise. With the Black Sea Fleet covering the Central Aegean Sea, he sent out all for of his CAG wings for a series of Port Strikes on Patra, moving the Carrier Fleet into the Northern Aegean Sea so his aeroplanes didn't have to fly as far on the second mission. After the second mission, only a single transport ship remained, and the docks had been blown to bits, making any further repairs impossible until the port facilities had been repaired. Upon returning to the Northern Aegean after their second run, I KPA and II KPA were intercepted by a single wing of Bulgarian Heinkel He 51 biplane Interceptors. (It should be noted that Bulgaria never had any He 51s in it's tiny Air Force. Also the He 51 was a significantly worse fighter than the CR.32 the Hungarians are using, as the CR.32 replaced the He 51 in the Nationalist Spanish Air Force during the civil war. It did prove a decent ground attack plane.)

Port strikes continued the next day, with another Air Battle taking place, and the final troop transport sent to the bottom by Il-10VM-launched torpedoes.

The obsolete He 51s being no match for our modern Carrier-based fighters, Counter Admiral Golovko was ordered to find the Bulgarian fleet. After a single bombing run on Varna on the 1st of August, it was confirmed that the Bulgarian navy consisted entirely of Transport ships, with no military vessels to speak of. The port was protected by Anti-Air Artillery, and the same He-51s intercepted our CAGs over it, downing a single aeroplane, for 12 of their own. The Bulgarian fleet is thus not a threat, and any attempt at an invasion by them could easily be foiled by the Red Navy. To save the CAGs some attrition, the mission was called off.

Balkans42-08-01-min.jpg

Greece, Bulgaria, and the surrounding seas and waterways. The playground of our Mediterranean Navy, for now. Torpedoes indicate Port strikes, Red ones are port strikes by our Navy Air Fleet (VMF)

Sea Battles (Mediterranean):

1. Eastern Ionian Sea (Naval Battle - Victory)
29 Jul 42 10 :00 - 03 Jul 42 01:00
VMF: VIII Flot Podlodok - 2 SS - 10 x Leninets Series II - 530 sailors - Mytiléné - V.Adm. Rakov L2, Spt
2 naval units / 10 ships / 530 sailors /
0 ships / 0 sailors KIA
Regia Marina: 8a SqT, 9a SqT - 2 TP - 10 Troop transports - 960 sailors - ? - Contrammiraglio Gaspari, L2
2 naval units / 10 ships / 480 sailors /
8a SqT (TP -37,5%), 9a SqT (TP -14,3%) / 3 ships / 249 sailors KIA​
Air Battles (Mediterranean):


11. Northern Aegean Sea (Bulgarian Intercept - Victory)
29 Jul 42 23:00 - 30 Jul 42 02:00
VMF: I KPA - CAGx2 - 64 La-7VM, 64 Il-10VM - 192 airmen - Kyiv (CV) - Air Ctr. Adm. Vershinin, L3
II KPA - CAG - 64 La-7VM, 64 Il-10VM - 192 airmen - Minsk (CV) - Air Capt 1C Sudets, L3
256 planes / 384 airmen /
1 downed / 2 KIA
RBAF: 6-ti IP - Int - 122 He-51 Sokol - 122 airmen - ? - Gen-Lt. (Maj. Gen) Ayrjanov, L1
122 planes / 122 airmen /
20 downed / 20 KIA​

12. Northern Aegean Sea (Bulgarian Intercept - Fog & Rain - Victory)
30 Jul 42 06:00 - 09:00
VMF: I KPA - CAGx2 - 64 La-7VM, 64 Il-10VM - 192 airmen - Kyiv (CV) - Air Ctr. Adm. Vershinin, L3
II KPA - CAG - 64 La-7VM, 63 Il-10VM - 190 airmen - Minsk (CV) - Air Capt 1C Sudets, L3
255 planes / 382 airmen /
1 downed / 1 KIA
RBAF: 6-ti IP - Int - 102 He-51 Sokol - 102 airmen - ? - Gen-Lt. (Maj. Gen) Ayrjanov, L1
102 planes / 102 airmen /
1 downed / 1 KIA​
15. Varna (Bulgarian Intercept - Victory)
01 Aug 42 12:00 - 14:00
VMF: I KPA - CAGx2 - 64 La-7VM, 64 Il-10VM - 192 airmen - Kyiv (CV) - Air Ctr. Adm. Vershinin, L3
II KPA - CAG - 64 La-7VM, 63 Il-10VM - 190 airmen - Minsk (CV) - Air Capt 1C Sudets, L3
255 planes / 382 airmen /
1 downed / 1 KIA
RBAF: 6-ti IP - Int - 89 He-51 Sokol - 89 airmen - ? - Gen-Lt. (Maj. Gen) Ayrjanov, L1
89 planes / 89 airmen /
12 downed / 12 KIA
GulfOfTaranto42-07-29_1600-min.jpg

Later on, in the Gulf of Taranto, our Submarines spotted the Italian Battleship Giulio Cesare, escorted by a Flotilla of Maestrale-Class Destroyers. Luckily, the Italian Destroyers didn't spot them when they were taking this picture. They managed to move on undamaged and unencumbered. With our Carrier Fleet in the Black Sea, our Red Navy was unable to send a suitable force to Intercept the Italian Battleship with any real chance of success.​
Convoy Raiding:

Baltic Sea: 16 Axis convoys sunk
North Atlantic: 8 Axis convoys sunk
Aegean Sea: 7 Axis convoys & 1 escort sunk
Central Med: 21 Axis convoys & 1 escort sunk
Total (last 10 days): 52 convoys and 2 escorts sunk
Total GPW (30 days): 148 convoys and 5 escorts sunk.​
Total numbers (GPW):

GPW_OV_42-08-01-min.jpg


Total Ground losses:
SU: 5.462.163 (+1.109.466) / 96.214 KIA (+21.076) (95.277 (+20.547 / ground), 937 (+529 / air)) / 57.778 POW (+10.994)
Ger: 3.082.994 (+570.690) / 90.407 KIA (+21.699 / ground) / 18.294 POW (+18.294)
Hun: 846.948 (+155.049) / 10.468 KIA (+3.921 / ground)
Ita: 21.748 (+11.987) / 242 KIA (+241 / ground)
Slo: 25.932 (+8.996) / 2.775 KIA (+ 969 / ground)
Axis: 3.977.622 (+746.722) / 163.491 KIA (103.892 (+26.830 / ground), 59.599 (+11.109 / air)) / 18.294 POW (+18.294)

Total Navy losses:
VMF: 2 Naval Battles / 6 Naval strikes / 9 Port strikes / BB -10% / CVL -32% / CA -15% / CL -30% / DD -57% / TP -4% / 1.131 sailors KIA (+106)
Kriegsmarine: 1 Naval Battle / 1 DD / 1.280 KIA
Regia Marina: 1 Naval Battle / 2 TP / 327 KIA
Royal Bulgarian Navy: 310 KIA
Axis: 148 Convoys / 5 Escorts

Air Totals (GPW - Last 40 days):
VVS: 33 battles / 448 Ground Attack / 44 Log. Bomb. / 1.802 (262 Yak-4, 515 Il-10, 626 La-7, 338 Yak-7, 14 TB-3, 47 Li-2) / 2.724 KIA
VMF (Air Fleet): 17 battles / 1 Naval Strike / 5 Port Strikes / 465 (232 La-7VM, 233 Il-10VM) / 698 KIA
Total SU: 44 battles / 448 Grd Attack / 44 Log. Bomb / 1 Naval Strike / 9 Port strike / 2.267 / 3.422 KIA
Luftwaffe: 35 battles / 6 Ground Attacks / 7 Naval strikes / 1.342 (379 Me-109G, 408 FW-190D, 477 Ju-88A-4, 36 Ju-290A, 42 Hs-129) / 3.061 KIA
RHAF: 6 battles / 305 (158 Ju-87, 188 Ju-86K-2, 132 CR.32) / 478 KIA
RBAF: 3 battles / 33 (33 He-51) / 33 KIA
Axis: 44 Battles / 6 Ground Attacks / 7 Naval Strikes / 1.680 / 3.572 KIA

Total Losses (GPW):
158.545 (+32.850 (SU)) / 187.274 (+58.022) (Axis)

Anti-Partisan Operations (including the previous anti-partisan operation)
NKGBF: 109.951 (+11.995) / 68 KIA (+2) (ground)
Fin: 40.375 (+6.088) / 391 KIA (+33 / ground) / 25.857 POW (+3.121)
These last 10 days, it was the Axis which overextended, and 2 German Divisions were forced to surrender to our forces, including 10 Panzer-Division. We did lose a Rifle Division in the South. As for casualties, the death toll was in our advantage, even before we add in the impact of the VVS. The Luftwaffe ramped up it's operations, disrupting our ground attack operations, and flying several of their own. That said, the VVS's Yak-7's gave them a warm reception, shooting down countless enemy aeroplanes. The scope of the war increased, with the appearance of Bulgarian troops, and limited Red Navy operations in the Aegean. The Finnish uprising is far from over as the NKGBF's mounted brigades are still moving into position to even start to grapple with the insurgents. Paratroopers will probably be called in to assist as soon as they're reorganised. Outside Finland, things are looking up: The main front has been stabilised, and the Armoured Army Group is starting to put pressure in the area between Kaunas and Brzesc Litweski. No further cities were lost despite the thinning defences in Riga, Kaunas, and Lwow. A foray into Zamosc, in Western Poland, will probably be pushed back, but it's bound to rattle the Germans. As always, your input is valued,

Greetings,

'Odin'​
 
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If I might make a recommendation for the data you're presenting, especially ones where the formatting here doesn't help convey the numbers (or the legend gets lost in translation): perhaps a screen capture of an excel spreadsheet loaded into an app like Piktochart could present a cleaner appearance and be easier to format?
 
If I might make a recommendation for the data you're presenting, especially ones where the formatting here doesn't help convey the numbers (or the legend gets lost in translation): perhaps a screen capture of an excel spreadsheet loaded into an app like Piktochart could present a cleaner appearance and be easier to format?
I wholeheartedly agree with you. The amount and variety of the data is getting out of control. The template I started the GPW with has already become a mess as I tried to adapt it to ever more different situations. It might not have been all that good to begin with. A visual summary could potentially make things clearer. I was too far into this update to change track halfway, but I'm definitely going to explore other options for the next GPW report. With that in mind, some more precise feedback concerning which elements are the most troublesome in the way the data is presented, would be helpful. I have some ideas on what works and doesn't, but I'm on the inside, so my judgement is bound to be somewhat clouded. Thanks for suggesting Piktochart, I'll explore and see if I can get it to do what I want it to, otherwise I'll (partially, or entirely) revert to the array of tools I'm used to (Gimp 2, Inkscape, Excell,...). Considering how finicky the forum can be with formatting, I do think that once I settle on a good visual template, even tailor-made graphics shouldn't take me significantly longer to pump out than the current way of listing data.

I do see this AAR as a bit of a testing ground. The main format is flexible enough for me to be able to try out all sorts of things: Creative writing, crunching numbers, graphics,... . I'm not really bound by anything save for the main format, and the 10-day reporting periods. (which is a nod to the 5-day weeks of the initial Soviet Calendar. No week-ends are needed in the worker's paradise...)
 
To make matters worse, the amount of troops in the city was cut in half in the previous days, with only Popov's XXIX GvSK and 10 TTGvD remaining.
Maybe it's just because updates are slow around here (nothing wrong with that, of course!), but my recollection of proper Socialist abbreviation conventions for division names is a bit spotty here. I believe that 10 TTGvD translates into the crude Capitalist tongue as "10th Guards Heavy Tank Division" (10ya Tyazhelaya Tankovaya Gvardeyskaya Diviziya), correct? Just a quick comprehension check there.

Of course, what they don't know is that 10 TTGvD has been fully resupplied overnight.
Reminds me of classic Soviet efficiency from OTL, where the Germans were consistently surprised by the Red Army's ability to refit entire tank corps seemingly overnight and go over from a dug-in defensive to the offensive in an instant.

Let's put these krauts in the ground,
Da, comrade!

The terrain North of Narvik suits our Mountaineers who should be able to hold off the Panzers in the mountains.
I wouldn't be too sure here. Without proper large AT guns, our Gornostrelkovyye Divizii may be able to hold off panzers for a while but won't be able to do much more than scratch their paint until we eventually retreat in shame.

The Garrison troops could take no more, and at 11pm on the 25th, they stopped their desperate strait-crossing attacks. Casualties were below 30 on our side, and over 900 on theirs.
If only we could have this ratio everywhere, we'd in Berlin by Christmas!

Northern German Front (2 AG & Arm AG / Moskva HQ):

Southern German Front (3 AG & 4 AG / Brjansk HQ & Odessa HQ):

Hungarian Front (3 AG & 4 AG / Brjansk HQ & Odessa HQ):
Seems to me that things are going unbelievably well here. Nowhere along the front am I seeing where the Germans have actually advanced their front line more than one province deep in the past ten days, which means they're pushing only 3-4 km a day. This is, of course, completely unsustainable for the Krauts.

I wholeheartedly agree with you. The amount and variety of the data is getting out of control. The template I started the GPW with has already become a mess as I tried to adapt it to ever more different situations. It might not have been all that good to begin with. A visual summary could potentially make things clearer. I was too far into this update to change track halfway, but I'm definitely going to explore other options for the next GPW report. With that in mind, some more precise feedback concerning which elements are the most troublesome in the way the data is presented, would be helpful. I have some ideas on what works and doesn't, but I'm on the inside, so my judgement is bound to be somewhat clouded. Thanks for suggesting Piktochart, I'll explore and see if I can get it to do what I want it to, otherwise I'll (partially, or entirely) revert to the array of tools I'm used to (Gimp 2, Inkscape, Excell,...). Considering how finicky the forum can be with formatting, I do think that once I settle on a good visual template, even tailor-made graphics shouldn't take me significantly longer to pump out than the current way of listing data.

I do see this AAR as a bit of a testing ground. The main format is flexible enough for me to be able to try out all sorts of things: Creative writing, crunching numbers, graphics,... . I'm not really bound by anything save for the main format, and the 10-day reporting periods. (which is a nod to the 5-day weeks of the initial Soviet Calendar. No week-ends are needed in the worker's paradise...)
Speaking for myself, I largely skip over the sets of numbers and statistics except for the summaries at the end. That's about as much as I care to know, personally. You may find a useful twist on your traditional formula to focus on statistical oddities rather than completeness, e.g. making note of particularly bloody battles or particularly hefty bombing casualties in a particular key province.
 
Judging just from the overall map it looks like, if you have enough force, you could slice off the German's Northern Front there. Maybe. The problem is getting your generals (AIs) to do what you hope they do.
 
I wholeheartedly agree with you. The amount and variety of the data is getting out of control. The template I started the GPW with has already become a mess as I tried to adapt it to ever more different situations. It might not have been all that good to begin with. A visual summary could potentially make things clearer. I was too far into this update to change track halfway, but I'm definitely going to explore other options for the next GPW report. With that in mind, some more precise feedback concerning which elements are the most troublesome in the way the data is presented, would be helpful. I have some ideas on what works and doesn't, but I'm on the inside, so my judgement is bound to be somewhat clouded. Thanks for suggesting Piktochart, I'll explore and see if I can get it to do what I want it to, otherwise I'll (partially, or entirely) revert to the array of tools I'm used to (Gimp 2, Inkscape, Excell,...). Considering how finicky the forum can be with formatting, I do think that once I settle on a good visual template, even tailor-made graphics shouldn't take me significantly longer to pump out than the current way of listing data.

I do see this AAR as a bit of a testing ground. The main format is flexible enough for me to be able to try out all sorts of things: Creative writing, crunching numbers, graphics,... . I'm not really bound by anything save for the main format, and the 10-day reporting periods. (which is a nod to the 5-day weeks of the initial Soviet Calendar. No week-ends are needed in the worker's paradise...)

Given that I've not had much of a need yet to convey similar data rapidly (leaving aside that my AAR's format is very different in key ways from yours), I'm not entirely sure I have good answers, really. For the battle reports, given the number of times one might fight over a single province (especially if they're within a few days of one another) I would lean towards lumping several fights together. Generally, these provinces are roughly between 35-55 kilometers from one to the other; it's not unreasonable that regardless of what the system is showing, that multiple fights would occur over a few days. It's possible to think of several as parts of a larger "battle" with each of these actions not taking place in a vacuum, but feeding into one another. For instance, in terms of OTL: Stalingrad would be a collection of several battles on about a total of twelve provinces, over the course of several months. Granted, that's not exactly how things are really being presented in your AAR (this is more a report to a committee, of course, on the roughly day-to-day gains and losses). Perhaps offloading the actions' casualty reports to an army or corps level would make them more meaningful and present less "noise."

For the Convoy raiding, might be interesting to see it as an infographic: pull a map out, run some of the offensive lines along it and put some numbers about who is losing what and that might convey a lot more information better than just a list.
 
Maybe it's just because updates are slow around here (nothing wrong with that, of course!), but my recollection of proper Socialist abbreviation conventions for division names is a bit spotty here. I believe that 10 TTGvD translates into the crude Capitalist tongue as "10th Guards Heavy Tank Division" (10ya Tyazhelaya Tankovaya Gvardeyskaya Diviziya), correct? Just a quick comprehension check there.
You are correct, TTGvD is indeed the socialist abbreviation for "Guards Heavy Tank Division" in capitalist-speak.

Reminds me of classic Soviet efficiency from OTL, where the Germans were consistently surprised by the Red Army's ability to refit entire tank corps seemingly overnight and go over from a dug-in defensive to the offensive in an instant.
That's definitely how I like to imagine it.

Da, comrade!
Da indeed.

I wouldn't be too sure here. Without proper large AT guns, our Gornostrelkovyye Divizii may be able to hold off panzers for a while but won't be able to do much more than scratch their paint until we eventually retreat in shame.
Well, that, or alternatively, they could just wait for the transmissions in those King Tigers to break down before they try to destroy them. Think about it. Steep roads and Mountainous terrain vs King Tiger transmissions.

If only we could have this ratio everywhere, we'd in Berlin by Christmas!
Definitely, except that Christmas is a capitalist religious tradition that is incompatible with the worker's revolution.

Seems to me that things are going unbelievably well here. Nowhere along the front am I seeing where the Germans have actually advanced their front line more than one province deep in the past ten days, which means they're pushing only 3-4 km a day. This is, of course, completely unsustainable for the Krauts.
Yes, the krauts are paying a very steep price for every inch of territory they capture, and they're even getting pushed back in places, and we haven't lost that many units to encirclements.

Judging just from the overall map it looks like, if you have enough force, you could slice off the German's Northern Front there. Maybe. The problem is getting your generals (AIs) to do what you hope they do.
I do believe we have sufficient forces to do this, in the shape of 2ya Tankovaya Armiya, but I'm not sure our Generals are seeing the big picture. Maybe I should add an 'axis of attack' in addition to the oriented objectives and 'Blitzing stance'.

Speaking for myself, I largely skip over the sets of numbers and statistics except for the summaries at the end. That's about as much as I care to know, personally. You may find a useful twist on your traditional formula to focus on statistical oddities rather than completeness, e.g. making note of particularly bloody battles or particularly hefty bombing casualties in a particular key province.
But I like completeness, it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling :eek:... Of course, that doesn't preclude me from putting more of a spotlight on statistical oddities for those who don't have the courage, or interest, to read through all of the data. I'll see what I can do, thank you for the feedback.

Given that I've not had much of a need yet to convey similar data rapidly (leaving aside that my AAR's format is very different in key ways from yours), I'm not entirely sure I have good answers, really. For the battle reports, given the number of times one might fight over a single province (especially if they're within a few days of one another) I would lean towards lumping several fights together. Generally, these provinces are roughly between 35-55 kilometers from one to the other; it's not unreasonable that regardless of what the system is showing, that multiple fights would occur over a few days. It's possible to think of several as parts of a larger "battle" with each of these actions not taking place in a vacuum, but feeding into one another. For instance, in terms of OTL: Stalingrad would be a collection of several battles on about a total of twelve provinces, over the course of several months. Granted, that's not exactly how things are really being presented in your AAR (this is more a report to a committee, of course, on the roughly day-to-day gains and losses). Perhaps offloading the actions' casualty reports to an army or corps level would make them more meaningful and present less "noise."
An interesting proposition. I did group several battles together in my reporting of the Finnish winter war, but there my reporting was more fine-grained and the statistics were integrated into the text. Offloading casualty reports to the Corps level is impractical as the AI tends to spread out it's corps, so battles often include units from different corps. Maybe cutting up the front into sectors could help, both in grouping battles together, and in giving broader casualty statistics. Of course, grouping battles together means I will have to change the way I report the battles in writing. Right now I write as I play, chronologically retelling the action for each of the Army Groups. I could modify the format to telling the story within these narrower sectors, along with the above-discussed modification of the statistical reports above. This is a departure from the way my spreadsheet is set-up, but I'm sure I could make it work and it would eventually be less effort that the current system.

For the Convoy raiding, might be interesting to see it as an infographic: pull a map out, run some of the offensive lines along it and put some numbers about who is losing what and that might convey a lot more information better than just a list.
The one issue is that I know where the convoys are sunk, but not always who is the owner of the convoy/escort, as the game doesn't seem report on every convoy that get's sunk, even if I switch on all the messages. Of course, I can always make an educated guess. The game only reports on some of the convoys sunk by fleets on convoy raiding missions, but fleets on other missions also sink convoys when they encounter them, and those actions never get reported, except in the naval screen. That said, I could still put convoy numbers on a map instead of making a list and you can draw your own conclusions as to who owns the convoys... It would certainly be more appealing, visually.
 
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Been off playing sport all day so I’ll get around to reading properly (there’s a lot there this time) and offering perspectives not so much on what the AAR should look like, (because it’s yours :)) but maybe on how I consume it, which bits I like in particular and which others may well enjoy but I just skim or pass over.

In different ways and in different elements though, in my AARs I’ve sometimes wondered about or even struggled with how much detail to go into vs how much time it takes to do and whether it’s workable, given the needs we have to eat, work, sleep as well! Or even interact with other people occasionally. :D And of course whether the readership keeps reading. Not sure I’ve always succeeded, but I’ll try to condense it into ‘questions I ask myself to work out whether and how much to include’. :)
 
An interesting proposition. I did group several battles together in my reporting of the Finnish winter war, but there my reporting was more fine-grained and the statistics were integrated into the text. Offloading casualty reports to the Corps level is impractical as the AI tends to spread out it's corps, so battles often include units from different corps. Maybe cutting up the front into sectors could help, both in grouping battles together, and in giving broader casualty statistics. Of course, grouping battles together means I will have to change the way I report the battles in writing. Right now I write as I play, chronologically retelling the action for each of the Army Groups. I could modify the format to telling the story within these narrower sectors, along with the above-discussed modification of the statistical reports above. This is a departure from the way my spreadsheet is set-up, but I'm sure I could make it work and it would eventually be less effort that the current system.

That's one benefit that I have versus most other people in that I keep far more control (rather than devolving it to the AI) over my armies. Especially given that the AI seems to try covering the widest possible frontage with each corps/army/group etc rather than concentrating their forces. My plan for my AAR is that I don't worry too much about the enemy OOB (as it's going to be about as fouled up as ever (until January 1944 when I take over all the major players) and if I catch an HQ (or several) just say that those units if they're there are under that particular corps/armies/groups' command at the time.

The one issue is that I know where the convoys are sunk, but not always who is the owner of the convoy/escort, as the game doesn't seem report on every convoy that get's sunk, even if I switch on all the messages. Of course, I can always make an educated guess. The game only reports on some of the convoys sunk by fleets on convoy raiding missions, but fleets on other missions also sink convoys when they encounter them, and those actions never get reported, except in the naval screen. That said, I could still put convoy numbers on a map instead of making a list and you can draw your own conclusions as to who owns the convoys... It would certainly be more appealing, visually.

I was under the impression that any convoy that was sunk was reported--if they aren't, it might explain how I took the UK down so quickly--but the flags in the reporting screen show who attacked and who lost convoys. Learn something new every day.
 
Been off playing sport all day so I’ll get around to reading properly (there’s a lot there this time) and offering perspectives not so much on what the AAR should look like, (because it’s yours :)) but maybe on how I consume it, which bits I like in particular and which others may well enjoy but I just skim or pass over.
I hope you had a good time playing sport. Thanks I sure would like your feedback, whenever you get around to it.

In different ways and in different elements though, in my AARs I’ve sometimes wondered about or even struggled with how much detail to go into vs how much time it takes to do and whether it’s workable, given the needs we have to eat, work, sleep as well! Or even interact with other people occasionally. :D And of course whether the readership keeps reading. Not sure I’ve always succeeded, but I’ll try to condense it into ‘questions I ask myself to work out whether and how much to include’. :)
I'm always happy to learn from the man of multiple simultaneous AARs.

That's one benefit that I have versus most other people in that I keep far more control (rather than devolving it to the AI) over my armies. Especially given that the AI seems to try covering the widest possible frontage with each corps/army/group etc rather than concentrating their forces. My plan for my AAR is that I don't worry too much about the enemy OOB (as it's going to be about as fouled up as ever (until January 1944 when I take over all the major players) and if I catch an HQ (or several) just say that those units if they're there are under that particular corps/armies/groups' command at the time.
It's funny how I seem to remember a time, when I was still an occasional lurker on the forum, where the majority of AAR writers controlled all of their own Divisions manually. Maybe I remember wrong, but I think playing with high level AI used to be the exception.

I was under the impression that any convoy that was sunk was reported--if they aren't, it might explain how I took the UK down so quickly--but the flags in the reporting screen show who attacked and who lost convoys. Learn something new every day.
Well, in the original HOI3 vanilla game, you only got data about convoys getting sunk from messages, and because you would see a transport appear in the 'sunk ships' list of the unit that sunk the convoy. (this isn't a feature anymore) This wouldn't always match, and sometimes no message would appear when a convoy was sunk. Now, with all the DLCs, you get messages, but you also have data on the map in the naval screen, and you (sometimes) have data in the 'strategic warfare overview'. In my experience, these three rarely match. The 'Strategic warfare overview' displays mostly incorrect numbers concerning the land war (I did some rough calculations on the winter war), so I'm not sure I can trust the naval part of it, when it works. If I leave a save game alone for too long, the 'strategic warfare overview' appears to have been erased entirely. (as is the case now.) It looks like there is no definitive way to actually know how many convoys have been sunk. I decided to trust the naval map (to a point, sometimes it throws up some ridiculous number that makes no sense), as the messages seem to be under-reporting the amount of convoys sunk. I have a feeling the naval map numbers may be too high as countries that lost many hundreds of convoys seem to continue merrily trading... Of course, there is the 'strategic warfare' thing in the Politics screen, but there it lists the 'number of attacks' on your own convoys, without stating the number of convoy units, or the tonnage, that are lost. There is no clear correlation between this 'number of attacks' and the National Unity penalty listed immediately after it. There may be some formula that links the amount of convoy units sunk with the National Unity impact, but as I don't even definitively know what that former number is, there's no way to really know for sure.
 
Been off playing sport all day

... did the ball go? :D

Well, in the original HOI3 vanilla game, you only got data about convoys getting sunk from messages, and because you would see a transport appear in the 'sunk ships' list of the unit that sunk the convoy. (this isn't a feature anymore) This wouldn't always match, and sometimes no message would appear when a convoy was sunk. Now, with all the DLCs, you get messages, but you also have data on the map in the naval screen, and you (sometimes) have data in the 'strategic warfare overview'. In my experience, these three rarely match. The 'Strategic warfare overview' displays mostly incorrect numbers concerning the land war (I did some rough calculations on the winter war), so I'm not sure I can trust the naval part of it, when it works. If I leave a save game alone for too long, the 'strategic warfare overview' appears to have been erased entirely. (as is the case now.) It looks like there is no definitive way to actually know how many convoys have been sunk. I decided to trust the naval map (to a point, sometimes it throws up some ridiculous number that makes no sense), as the messages seem to be under-reporting the amount of convoys sunk. I have a feeling the naval map numbers may be too high as countries that lost many hundreds of convoys seem to continue merrily trading... Of course, there is the 'strategic warfare' thing in the Politics screen, but there it lists the 'number of attacks' on your own convoys, without stating the number of convoy units, or the tonnage, that are lost. There is no clear correlation between this 'number of attacks' and the National Unity penalty listed immediately after it. There may be some formula that links the amount of convoy units sunk with the National Unity impact, but as I don't even definitively know what that former number is, there's no way to really know for sure.

I think that's because the on-map unit of "transports" are different from the not-on-map "unit" of "convoys." Since transports don't count towards actually shipping things, convoys didn't count as actual ships.

Regardless, Paradox really doesn't do all that well in handling anything in the naval or air war, and the convoy system in HoI3 (and even in HoIs 2 & 4) are at best, kludge-y.
 
... did the ball go? :D
Alas, got out early to a quick bowler (who I was silly enough to be opening the innings against), then had a small calf strain from running in the field a bit too vigorously (when will I ever learn :rolleyes:) just before I was going to bowl, and cautiously subbed myself off at that point. Was a good and close game otherwise - and I was introduced to the 'socially distanced' version of the handshake/ fist bump or hand slap: the 'elbow knock'! :D At least no one was licking their fingers to rub on the ball to shine it, which is normal practice in non-pandemic times! And the beers afterwards were cold, but weren't Coronas! ;) Too soon?
 
OK, so I'll use the last chapter as a comment template:

1. Always like the narrative stuff, whether it's 11 or the rest of the Committee. No need to change any of that, I reckon.

2. The Front (prose) summaries: pretty solid there, though the amount of info you now have to report on, with Barbarossa in full flight, makes too much detailed reporting start to turn into a wall of words and then a very complicated map with lots of numbers on it.

3. The battle summary lists that follow are perhaps getting to be too much for me (at least) to grapple with in any sensible way. In both TT and Q&D2 (especially, as it is Russia though on some far less crowded battlefields, but then encompassing a whole month at a time), I've started to cut back where I can on the level of detail, especially on smaller skirmishes. And not mentioning them all in the narrative description - maybe the larger or more interesting/pivotal battles, as other have mentioned.

Comment: While I still keep track of them all on spreadsheets (like I imagine you do), they're not all reported any more, and where they are (in Q&D2) it is often just an on-map summary with the bare minimum of info, but each to their own on format. Personally, I think I can get away with more detail in TT, because it's just Turkey and I chose it (a larger minor) to allow unit micro management and a more detailed reporting style, but even there I'm starting to cut back/out some of the detail. With Q&D2, even with only Persia and the Far East to report on. there's just too much. The obsessive/complete record part of me may keep a screenshot of every battle's start and finish and, if a big one, progress shots, and tally them all in the spreadsheet, but not report them all in any detail, as I would in TT. Just a few (!?) exceptions.

Key Question to Self: does the extra detail really add to the story or general description of the outcome? Does it get too much to both write up and for readers to make sense of? If so, I try to find ways to cut it back or out. Giving more time to write narrative, less for the reader to wade through; just include the detail that describes the sweep of events clearly. I sometimes look at map-illustrated accounts of WW2 to recalibrate the amount of detail you really need (but then add a bit more in anyway, cos I can't help myself :D).

Example: Looking at the Northern German Front summary in the last chapter. The general format is good, but I'm wondering whether there's a bit too much wall of words followed by a map with over 20 battle reference points on it (ie that you need to then skip to and fro to situate). I do like the larger/smaller symbols to depict the size of battles. You know I love a detailed map and battle report, but I think I found it a bit hard to follow it all. A map is good for depicting movement visually: in history books, its usually Army level icons at most, with some arrows, front lines and the occasional major battle marker. It's the arrows that give the representation of movement easily.

Then there's the triple-telling of info: once in the summary, more in the map, then the detailed battle report list following. It got the point where I just skipped passed the detailed reports, as I'm not sure they added anything more that really needed saying.

Suggestion: While you could break it up further, I think you've still got the problem of so much info to report (if you stay at that level) that it must take a lost of time and effort to prepare and it may still make the chapters unwieldy to write and then consume. One suggestion could be to largely retain your format, but to take the level of reporting up one. After all, in a story sense, Stalin and the Committee should perhaps be more interested in the larger scale and (in reality and when it's just the one poor scribe analysing and writing it all up) would probably be looking more at the Army to Army Group level. So in this case, you could try using broadly the same format, but reporting on sectors (perhaps each a little smaller) with a more general description and accompanying map. And instead of having a long list of battle results at the end, just putting in the summary stats: eg 21 battles, Ger won x, Sov y, total cas x & y. Same with air war stats, done by sector rather than the whole front?​

In summary, I reckon it's a great AAR and if you decide not to really change anything, I won't mind at all. :) I worry more about your ability to sustain things (time and nervous energy + RL demands) with such a large and sweeping theatre to report on. And others have made some very good recommendations of other stuff that can help to organise or condense what you do decide to report. But the underlying issue is one of volume (for writer and reader). The same quandary I debate about with my AARs (not just the HOI3 ones, either). :confused:
 
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It's funny how I seem to remember a time, when I was still an occasional lurker on the forum, where the majority of AAR writers controlled all of their own Divisions manually. Maybe I remember wrong, but I think playing with high level AI used to be the exception.
I think this has a lot to do with the fact that the game is, on basic settings, too easy for the average veteran (true, in fairness, for any Paradox title), however the in-game difficulty settings are rather stark and uncompromising to play with, making the AI units just strictly superior to compensate for a poor AI.

As an every-division micromanager myself, I personally appreciate the modded-in difficulty options in HPP which give the AI nations a range of indirect bonuses that enable the AI to resist more effectively at a strategic level without feeling overpowering "in the moment". I'd have a hard time going back and playing Germany, for instance, and running into a brick wall in France because of the difficulty (though I remember one Germany AAR where the authAAR kept pumping up the difficulty as the campaign went on, eventually being surrounded and losing horribly in a quite realistic manner).

Anyhow, I get the impression that the average authAAR these days doesn't much like playing a "hardcore" game, and prefers to use the AI HQs to keep the feeling of being a "real" commander while handicapping the player. Our authAARs seem to love narrative and detail more than hardcore gameplay - which makes for a just-fine AAR in my opinion! :D

2. The Front (prose) summaries: pretty solid there, though the amount of info you now have to report on, with Barbarossa in full flight, makes too much detailed reporting start to turn into a wall of words and then a very complicated map with lots of numbers on it.
This reminded me to say: I insist (so much as any mere readAAR might) that maps should always precede the wall of text they accompany. This may just be me, as I'm quite a visual reader and always need a map to follow the action across a front, but to me the map tells me at a glance (a picture saying a thousand words!) what is happening in this section or region. Then the text provides the most important details the map itself doesn't contain - strategic insights, casualty numbers, and so on.

Related to this, you might find that your maps don't provide the level of detail you'd like, particularly when the front only moves a province either way between updates. It may be worth considering if the front updates should be e.g. monthly, so that there's more salient information per map/post even if the level of detail in the text is necessarily reduced.

Key Question to Self: does the extra detail really add to the story or general description of the outcome? Does it get too much to both write up and for readers to make sense of? If so, I try to find ways to cut it back or out. Giving more time to write narrative, less for the reader to wade through; just include the detail that describes the sweep of events clearly. I sometimes look at map-illustrated accounts of WW2 to recalibrate the amount of detail you really need (but then add a bit more in anyway, cos I can't help myself :D).
I might add the worthy consideration of replacing numerical detail with narrative, if you're worried about lacking the depth of content you're used to in a post. It may in fact behoove Odin and friends to begin collecting firsthand accounts of the fighting on the ground to assess conditions to aid their decision-making, rather in a similar vein to how historians will quote war diaries and divisional histories whilst discussing a critical engagement. This need not require introducing more characters as in the Odinatsat narrative, one can simply quote unnamed privates or dig into the reports to Stavka from the front commanders.

Since you (@roverS3) particularly seem to like the narrative writing, this may be a natural shift whilst maintaining your usual high level of content, if you feel such a change is warranted. :D