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my mistake
 
Operation Tatar (cont.)

Phase one of Operation Crusade has concluded, the radical revolutionary government of Turkey has been overthrown, with former president Mustafa Kemal "Ataturk" placed back as head of state. As of now the Turkish army is being screened to root out any loyalists to the old regime, though nearly all soldiers were supporters of Kemal before the coup removed him. The quality of the army itself leaves much to be desired. They are in the same boat as many of our allies in the Balkans: very little in the way of modern artillery and firearms, unremarkable or antiquated officers, and abysmal morale and espirit du corps. We hope that it may be possible to employ at least one Turkish corps in the Middle East or Caucasus campaigns, but Field Marshall Dietl judges the Turkish soldiers unfit for frontline duty, so we shall see.

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With the XLth Panzerkorps headed South to Irak, the rest of Army Group South East headed East to the Caucasus, and Army Group South A progressing excellently along the Dnieper, our 1942 campaign is actually ahead of schedule. The striking arm of Gruppe A is proving to be effectively unstoppable; over twenty seasoned divisions, nearly half motorized of mechanized, concentrated into an iron fist. After five days of hard fighting through the front lines of the Soviet 2nd Army and 1st Mechanized Army, von Kleist's 1st Panzerarmee is racing South to their objectives: the cities of Kryvvy Rih and Dnipropetrovsk. This formation and it's flanking 3rd and 4th Armees have caused nearly 7000 enemy casualties in 5 days, and will surely cause thousands more soon, when they finish their envelopment of the Soviet Ukrainian and Dnieper Fronts.

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A column of Panzer IV Gs from the 1st Panzer advance across an improvised bridge
There have also been setbacks in the operation, specifically on Heeres Gruppe A's right flank and with Heeres Gruppe B's attack across the Bug River. When Tatar began H.G.S B immediately ran into difficulties; Soviet engineers had blown every bridge they could over the upper Bug prior to our arrival, as a result we've been forced to ferry troops in secret across to begin construction of pontoon bridges. This is a long and frustrating process, as the Russians are putting considerable effort into stopping us. The 27th Corps of the Red Army has it's artillery zeroed in on the river, and are bombarding the hell out of those working. Meanwhile the combat troops and limited armor we've gotten across have the difficult job of breaking out of our salient, and haven't progressed more than a few miles in almost a week of bitter fighting.

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One of the many clogged pontoon bridges across the Bug used by the 2nd Panzerarmee and 10th Armee

There have also been setbacks for the 3rd Armee of Gruppe A; more than ten thousand men have been added to the casualty list since the beginning of the offensive. 3rd Armee's 16th Korps has has taken a beating in the Battle for Zhaskiv, with a massive attack by the 26th and 17th Mechanized Corps swarming through their lines and routing all German forces we could throw at it. A two pronged counterattack by the XXII and XLIII Korps is about to be underway to roll back these armored divisions into the developing pocket. Hopefully we can trap the entire 1st Mechanized Armiya, and thus leave the Red Army in Ukraine entirely devoid of mobile reserves.

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As the Eastern offensives resume with a bang, the counteroffensive in Norway is slowly chugging along. A XIIth Korps assault on the town of Fagernes left 4000 KIA or WIA as our men hammered against heavy British defences. The 50th Korps has also been knocked back on the road to Lillehammer by a British armored attack. The equal size of the forces engaged in this theatre, as well as the rather rough terrain, means that the entire campaign will be back and forth in nature. It is a slow and grueling process to clear the British out of Norway, and Oberkommando Norweigan knows this. The staff of OKN keeps the Oberkommando des Heeres informed of day-to-day actions, so the OKH staff is aware. So we must not overreact to battle losses and failures in the Norweigan campaign.


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Landsers of the 197th Infanterie Division advancing through Eastern Norway.
 
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Please, give me some feedback, I want to know how to make this more interesting and enjoyable for all of you.

Just caught up again and it just gets better and better and better...:) The Axis & Allies was an excellent "world-situation" pictorial update...very good. I'll agree with Sebas that some text here and there about status elsewhere works well too - tis my cup o' tea anyway.

The thing is, opinions are just that but I will say one tiny thing about lotsa pics and that is try to catch when 2 pics are very similar and axe one. By no means will this always be possible, but where you can "effectively" merge info for the same region, do so. However, as I said I enjoy what you have published very much. Truthfully, I doubt my thoughts about pictures are very important because I value story-telling over pics and so I always find myself - axing <ahem> "large photo-albums of screenshots taken".<LOL>

Btw, very glad this is a DWI AAR, I'd like to head there soon. (if I can figure out how to make it work)
 
Just caught up again and it just gets better and better and better...:) The Axis & Allies was an excellent "world-situation" pictorial update...very good. I'll agree with Sebas that some text here and there about status elsewhere works well too - tis my cup o' tea anyway.

The thing is, opinions are just that but I will say one tiny thing about lotsa pics and that is try to catch when 2 pics are very similar and axe one. By no means will this always be possible, but where you can "effectively" merge info for the same region, do so. However, as I said I enjoy what you have published very much. Truthfully, I doubt my thoughts about pictures are very important because I value story-telling over pics and so I always find myself - axing <ahem> "large photo-albums of screenshots taken".<LOL>

Btw, very glad this is a DWI AAR, I'd like to head there soon. (if I can figure out how to make it work)

Thank you sir. On the merging pictures thing: I would like to edit my photos like you do, putting diagrams and explaining things, but it's too much bloody work :D.

On DWI, are you have trouble installing it or something like that?
 
10.000 dead in just one battle! holy cow... the war of attrition won't be won this way hehehe... let's hope that the treat to Baku forces the AI so send troops from the Front to defend the Oil city
 
10.000 dead in just one battle! holy cow... the war of attrition won't be won this way hehehe... let's hope that the treat to Baku forces the AI so send troops from the Front to defend the Oil city

I honestly have no friggin clue how I lost that many.
 
10.000 casualties in one engagement on the eastern front, 4.000 men lost in a terrible battle in Norway, despite the ground gained things are still grim. The encirclement operation you are conducting better yield some impresive results because I'm getting the feeling the Soviet soldiers are done running. If they'r going to stand and fight like that across the front ou won't have a man left to hammer them with next year.

The grim fighting does project a very real eastern front feel on the AAR, which I think is great.
 
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I agree with sebas again; "The grim fighting does project a very real eastern front feel on the AAR, which I think is great."

In that picture with the huge losses...what's-up with the supplies or fuel? That might be why the losses are so bad.
 
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von Kleist's Masterstroke

Heeres Gruppe Sud A continues to perform with superb distinction in it's southward thrust. It's 600k men form a seemingly unstoppable force that treats Soviet units like flies, swatting them down and rolling onward. At the head of this beast is the rapidly advancing 1st Panzerarmee under the esteemed General von Kleist. The 24th Panzerkorps is the tip of the spear, and on the 15th it's trio of divisions reached the outskirts of the objective cities of Kryvvy Rih and Dnipropetrovsk. On the 17th, the 60th Motorized Division captured Dnipropetrovsk after a brief struggle. On July 18 the 25th Motorized of the X Motorized Armeekorps began assaulting the city while the XXIV Panzerkorps enveloped the city to the South. By early morning of the 25th, a combined 4 division assault forced the beleaguered Soviets west into the increasingly smaller cauldron.

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To the northwest of the schwerpunkt the Soviets are putting up more substantial resistance. The 3rd Armee has to contend with incessant mechanized counter attacks by the 1st Soviet Mechanized Army along the it's frontage. Bitter fighting for the town of Zhashkiv has left the XVI Korps mangled, over 10,000 casualties in one week, and in retreat. Marschall Manstein himself has ordered a counterattack to suppress these incursions and rout them back into "The Zhashkiv Kessel" but only the 10th Sturm Division could be rallied for the effort. The heavily equipped Sturm assault division had no problem fighting for the town with it's Stosstruppen and assault artillery, but won't be enough if the Soviets counter with their armored forces. The issue presently is supply, with all surplus fuel and provisions furnished to the panzer divisions for their blitz, there is a disorganized effort to replenish the supporting forces in the 4th and 3rd Armees. With only a narrow corridor open for convoys, and limited unpaved roads available, the logistics service is having one hell of a time doing their jobs. Because of this chaos the 43rd Korps is utterly unable to bring their strength to bear for the inevitable Soviet counterstrike into Zhashkiv, let us hope the 10th Sturm can hold.

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10th Sturm Division soldiers dug in on a slope outside of Zhashkiv

On the Southern axis there is still stalemate. The newly promoted Feldmarschall Heinrici cannot break through the Bug Fortified Line as his Army Group is not made of superhumans. The 2nd Panzerarmee is slowly but surely breaking it's way through the entrenched Soviet 27th Mechanized Corps, a Herculean task for even the elite Panzertruppen. The Bug River Line is something I have left unmentioned before now. Towards the conclusion of the 1941 campaign with Zhukov's massive front encircled in Romania, Stalin and his generals saw the writing on the wall. It was obvious that Ukraine would be left dangerously undermanned, and that Army Group South would be in no condition to attack through the winter, so STAVKA (Soviet High Command) ordered the immediate construction of a new defensive line. Right away they conscripted a massive labor force of Ukrainian citizens and set them to digging trenches, laying reinforced concrete bunkers, and building a large complex of winter quarters and barracks for garrison troops. Then Red Army engineers came in, stringing miles of razor wire, welding hundreds of metal tanks traps, and laying thousands of anti-tank and anti-personal mines in a series of fortifications rivaling the famous French Maginot Line. To complicate an already difficult assignment, H.G. B has to contend with raids from the Soviet side of the river, and on July 17, a full scale armored attack on Berezivka by the 21st Tankoviya. This attack smashed it's way through the Jugoslawien and Rumanien sectors, leading with it's T-34s, nigh impenetrable to our allies' antiquated and underpowered anti-tank weaponry. In the ensuing rout of the Yugoslav II. Korps and Romanian 1st Armee more than 8000 men were killed/wounded/captured.

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Destroyed bunker on the Southen section of the Bug River Fortified Line

It was not until July 21st that the leading divisions of the 2nd Panzerarmee broke through at Mykolaiv, with the XXIII and XXV Panzerkorps now sprinting unopposed to seal the trap with the 1st Panzerarmee. We appear to be trapping 27 divisions, nearly the entire strength of the Red Army's Dnieper Front. Only two motorized divisions, thirty thousand men, and two armored divisions, twenty thousand haven't been encircled. This adds up to around three hundred and fifty thousand men, and when it is pacified, will leave the Don Basin and Eastern Ukraine open to capture. Included in the kessel is most of the 1st Mechanized Armiya, the Red Army's premiere counter to our Panzerarmees. The loss of one of the five of these formations will be a serious blow to Soviet morale and combat power.

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Landsers of the 20th Motorized Divisions crossing the Bug River in inflatable boats.

In Norway, despite heavy casualties, the 12th Armee is pushing back the British invaders. Our forces have won 4 subsequent battles of varying size and intensity as they slowly push out in a crescent advance pattern. In spite of complaints from OKH about high casualty rates the offensive will proceed. I must repeat, we need to tie down British forces, bleed them dry, and then push them out of Norway. This comes straight from the Fuhrer's desk, and those who disobey Directives suffer the consequences.

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What a bloodbath again. The encirclement at Kryvyy looks good.
I might have gotten in too early, but something seems to have gone wrong at the end of the update, the text suddenly cuts?
 
What a bloodbath again. The encirclement at Kryvyy looks good.
I might have gotten in too early, but something seems to have gone wrong at the end of the update, the text suddenly cuts?

Yes :D, accidentally pressed some key and it uploaded before I was done :mad:
 
Then i was a little early to the party, lets have another looks :)

The Bug river has been a major issue, but the defences are finally crumbling. With that kessel being the end of the Soviet Dnieper front, a breakthrough may at long last be possible.
Wait, they have another 4 large Mechanised armies with a ton of armoured divisions and mobile units? Bloody hell. And with less than 250 manpower in reserve you cannot sustain this for much longer. Is the end of the stream of Soviet divisions in sight, allowing you to finally advance properly, or do you expect yet more armies to be thrown in your way?