General Offensive continues August 28th
The battle of Chisinau which is shortly to commence was monitored and gave, germany 51.2 man power loss to soviet union 8.7. I wasn’t expecting or depending on such high loss ratios but this is the sort of thing you can expect if attacks are made at reasonably good odds (i.e. several to one).
A very important factor to consider in these battles is that the high German org makes their units stay in battle longer and take much heavier casualties. If I was in the AI’s position I would be retreating troops from these battles as holding up the Soviet armies for a few days is pointless if your forces are destroyed. You should only fight where the casualty ratio is favourable or immanent encirclement (by you or against you) makes it imperative.
As you can see from the map, the offensive is developing in the northern sector towards squeezing the germans against the coast with the likelihood of encirclement unless they do something about it. It is important in this situation to avoid focusing too much on this possibility as the soviet steam roller cannot force encirclement and should concentrate on the attrition battles accepting encirclements as a bonus when they happen. This is very difficult to do and I find that I can’t resist trying to encircle even though I know that it is a weaker strategy than concentrating on the meat grinder.
You can see from the map and the movements in progress that one of the consequences of launching multiple convergent attacks is that I now have holes in my line. The fact is I don’t care. If the Germans go for those holes then they are going to suffer some unpleasant concequences and as long as they only break through in small numbers the constant supply of new divisions will allow me to mask them of and later destroy them. The meat grinder is going to make sure that the main front line moves steadily westwards.
General Situation September 6th
The attacks on Lwow, Chisinau, Iasi, Suwalki and Kaunas seen developing in the previous situation map have completed in Soviet victory with the usual mauling of Axis troops. The battle of Suwalki 5-6th Sept resulted in losses of Germans 90, SU 2. I’m not sure I believe this but it is what I noted down at the time and after victory occurred you can’t go back and check what happened. You can see fresh attacks developing in the South. I am exploiting the very low troop levels from Prezemysl down to the black sea. There are major Axis forces ready to reinforce Ploesti but since I don’t know how these are likely to perform I am launching a probing attack to see what happens. I have promoted a couple of engineer field marshals who are deployed to armies carrying out river crossings. They move around a lot in the south, joining their armies just before combat commences.
There is a tiny german force that took advantage of the hole in my line but their days are severely numbered despite leading my forces a merry dance for a week or two actually getting as far as Kiev. Infantry armies are not very good at chasing down mobile forces and they aren’t finally eliminated until I surround them with new divisions.
In the north there are major battles taking place in siauliai and memel. The battle in siauliai is not going well due to only having a small numbers advantage and a variety of small but unfortunate combat modifiers. They add up. This battle was continued for longer than it should have been because I wanted to pin down these German troops whilst I tried to surround them. A fairly pointless idea as my armies are so slow moving and the meat grinder principal (see, I have to keep reminding myself). The troops retreat from this battle on Sept 7th and the main result was two 12 division armies completely useless for a couple of weeks as they had taken 75% casualties and minimal org left. The Germans suffered badly as well but probably only took 30-50% of these casualties overall. The Germans in siauliai will have to pull back or be surrounded.
I also had to pull back from Liepajas when that battle started as I was taking casualties 50% faster than germans. In this case I checked in the first couple of hours of the battle and pulled back before any serious harm had been done. Examination of combat conditions shows we had surprise bonus but their +20% for leadership, poor weather and equal numbers undermined the attack. However, their troops are cut off now.
The 2nd battle of siauliai on 10th September results in an overwhelming soviet victory, Germans losses 40 mp, SU losses 25mp. Also the retreating German army is heading for Konigsberg and I am going to get their first. All the German troops in the Baltic area are soon cut off as my attack on Konigsberg is instantly successful and the army retreating from siauliai has nowhere to go and is destroyed on the 15th September.
Situation on Sept 13th
As can be seen the German Baltic forces are doomed but are having a bit of fun having captured Riga and are now aiming for Talinn. It would be perfectly possible for the AI to evacuate these troops but I don’t think it really knows how.