May 25b
Later the same day the battle of Siauliai starts with similar odds. However this battle suffers from prevailing frost conditions. It is still early in the year so this isn’t too much of a shock and is no great handicap at these odds.
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May 25b
Later the same day the battle of Siauliai starts with similar odds. However this battle suffers from prevailing frost conditions. It is still early in the year so this isn’t too much of a shock and is no great handicap at these odds.
May 27th
My forces have taken 40 casualties to the Soviet 387. This is a ratio of just under 10:1 which is not as good as I really want. This is basically down to the weather (and another 10% penalty for the forest). The enemy is soon defeated and the reinforcements, turned counter attack, from Liepaja are almost instantly defeated. My armies from the battle of Kaunas are now doing what my mechanised divisions are meant to do. They are rushing about the battlefield at breakneck speed and are on their way to Daugavpils via Memel.
May 30th
The battle of Lwow actually lasts a whole 7 hours mostly due to the storm conditions. The whole southern area of operations is engulfed in rain and storms.
May 30b
My armies in the north and the south are advancing to exploit my successful attacks. Notice the attack into Rowne, this attack is only being made to widen the supply path so that I do not need to guard it. If I had other potential supply routes then I would leave it for later attention.
June 4th
I have now taken Daugavpils and Wilno and my armies are continuing their exploitation. Two armies head across the river to Rezekne looking to create a pocket against the Baltic coast. Meanwhile the forces in Wilno are split. One army heading back to meml to hold in the Soviet forces on the coast and then to crush the pocket. The other heads for Minsk ready to advance further east. There is no thought at this time of turning south around the marshes to complete an encirclement as this operation can equally well achieve its objectives by being carried out further to the east.
On the southern front my exploitation to Rowne and Zjitomir are progressing disturbingly slowly. Unfortunately the map gives no indication of mud (or frost) so I cannot be certain what is going on.
June 6th
My infantry armies make their first attack at suitably overwhelming odds. The river has little impact on the efficiency of infantry attacks and the defenders will soon be wrecked and retreating.
Further south 2 armies have reached Vinnytsa and are progressing further east and south. This penetration will sweep down to Odessa to create a southern pocket and sweep across the Dnepr river to gain a bridgehead on the east bank around Kiev somewhere.
June 7th
The battle of Minsk is soon over as the defenders are reinforced defeated divisions all at zero org. Notice there is frost weather here too. The spring thaw hasn’t arrived in the North and is a swamp of mud and rain in the south. Perhaps I should have left the attack even longer but I don’t trust the game to ever have a proper summer and I can’t afford to find myself in late August wondering if the summer is about to start.
June 8th
I have crossed to Rezekne and two panzer armies close on Riga to form a pocket. If the Russians from Liepaja get there and I defeat them they will retreat back to Liepaja and be in a pocket. The single army sent back to cover them has moved south to clear out wandering Russians in Kaunas. They have got there using the strange province connectivity in this area but will soon be leaving again. The army in Minsk is heading east into Vitebsk rather than the more southerly route through Mogiljov. Their task is to take control of the area to the north and west of Moscow to provide a base for further operations.
Further south things are progressing as before. The evidence suggests that Rowne and Zjitomir are suffering from mud conditions and the provinces south of there are under permanent rain and storm conditions. This looks very much like a HOI stalled weather system (@!ӣ$%^&*).
June 9th
Guderian finally arrives at Rowne and proves that there is mud here. Even so this battle will soon be over down to my technological superiority and numerical advantage. This is a delay that I could do without but things should clear up in a bit. Despite appearance Model is just sitting in Lwow, he is on his way to Zjitomir.
June 10th
My forces have arrived at Riga and started fighting. Unfortunately I appear to have left the river crossing field marshals in command instead of reinstating the panzer commanders. Hopefully this won’t matter too much as the weather here appears to be OK.
It seems that the Soviets are still at war with the Finns, are you going to use that? Give techs to the Finns or just ignore it?
Kanitatlan said:
yes, permanent [bad] weather fronts are a real pain in the @$$.
BTW, have you overrun any of the Soviet fighters, yet?
elbasto said:
Well spotted. I have just going to ignore it. I expect it is distracting significant Soviet forces but if they haven't won from the position they are in now then there can't be that much committed there (can there?). Just how incompetent is the ai?
GhostWriter said:yes, permanent [bad] weather fronts are a real pain in the @$$.
BTW, have you overrun any of the Soviet fighters, yet?
I have overrun a few but I'm not keeping track. At the end of the first phase of the conquest of the USSR there will be a full report with statistics.
So far I have left my airforce out of it but they will join in later.
June 14th
In the south Manstein has fought his way into Kirovograd and is now heading acroos the Dnepr. Meanwhile Hoth is assaulting Odessa to close the southern pocket. The Russians are attacking into Iasi but I really don’t care. It won’t do anything to save them from the fate in store. Notice the armies from Rowne have already driven round to Vinnitsya whilst Model is still wading his way to Zjitomir.
June 15th
The battle of Riga is coming to a close. I have taken 202 casualties against a Soviet loss of 1071. This is the sort of not so good loss ratio that this strategy causes. It may sound OK but each of the mechanised divisions involved in this battle has taken an 8.5% strength loss (so far). These sorts of losses soon add up. At 18:00 on June 16th the battle is over. Notice that forces are coming from the south after clearing Kaunas to crush the pocket out of existence.
June 17th
The battle of Zjitomir is now in progress and as expected there is mud. Fortunately the defenders are weaker and mostly at very low org from previous fighting in Rowne and subsequent reinforcement.
The battle of Bialystok is also in progress and receiving substantial air support as odds are not what they should be.
The advance of Vitebsk has also succeeded against no effective opposition.
June 17th b
Here is a close up of the battle of Bialystock, despite the date the weather is still frost. The sping thaw was very late in 1941 in real life and yet it was all thawed and dried out by 22nd of June. It looks like this 1941 I am having will set some new records.
The Russian air force is nowhere to be seen and my bombers start providing wide-ranging air attacks on retreating Russian units. This form of air attack is quite safe since the units are at zero org and can be left on repeat slowly depleting their strength and converting defeat into destruction.
June 21st
Meanwhile the UK forces have been left to retake parts of the Arabian Peninsula. They first landed on June 8th but are starting to commit significant forces. I would speculate that this is the remains of the UK land forces, as they no longer have the resources to do anything (industrial collapse).
Bombing of retreating Russians continues.
June 22nd
I close in on the remaining 36 soviet divisions on the Baltic coast (notice the continuing frost). This will be the first big pocket destroyed with the loss of something like 500,000 soviet troops in the battles in this area. Notice that I have taken Bialystock and the Russian troops in Kaunas and Grodno are now isolated and ripe for destruction.
I am one month into the Russian campaign and have made considerable in roads into Russian territory and cut off or destroyed something like 140 (a guess) Soviet divisions. On top of this there must be several dozen Soviet divisions sufficiently damaged to no longer be capable of sustained combat until their org has recovered. I have a pocket on the Baltic coast, a pocket just north of the marshes and a pocket in the south against the Black Sea coast.