26 September, 1943
To open this, probably the last month of campaigning we'll get before winter sets in, we'll be pushing hard on the already-weakened Romanian front, specifically at Beltsy and Chisinev. In the north, an attack on Wilno seems like a good plan, but it'll be a week or two before sufficient forces are in place and fully organized.
0800 26 September
In the far east, Yakovlev's tactical bomber wing makes a reconnaissance flight over American-held territory, revealing almost eighty divisions facing off against our thirty-seven (although the Americans can't attack with more than 48 at a time without suffering command penalties). It's going to be capital-F Fun evicting them from here when the time for that comes.
Research continues apace, with priorities being airborne infantry, widely-applicable air doctrines, naval vessels, and supply savings.
1700 27 September
Attack on Chisinev kicks off soon.
1900 28 September
The Germans make an attack on Mogilev-Podolski, presumably with an eye toward taking the pressure off of Chisinev. In command of our defense is General Bagramian, to whom I believe I've already linked. Either way, he's one of our best commanders. I'm going to keep an eye on how quickly he's gaining experience; if the answer is 'pretty quickly', I'm going to let him get to skill 5, then promote him to full General and turn his corps (presently one armored division and two motorized) into another 3xARM 3xMOT corps after the pattern of Zhukov's and Rokossovsky's.
1200 1 October
Chisinev's initial defenders fall back. More fighter wings are moved to Finland for some free experience against the Hungarian and Portugese bombers.
1800 2 October
Freezing weather is beginning to appear across Russia a few weeks before I fully expected it. The attack on Chisinev and the one I'm shortly going to launch on Wilno will probably be the last major ones of the year (though we'll what you think).
0600 3 October
With some reinforcements, Bagramian holds Mogilev-Podolski without much issue.
0100 4 October
The attack on Wilno starts. Notice the snowy weather on the Baltic Sea coast, and the fact that we outnumber the Germans 54-21.
0000 5 October
Battles are going well (we defeated another wave of defenders at Chisinev, but it's been reinforced again, and we're still fighting fiercely there). 13 new infantry divisions were deployed today.
0300 9 October
The weather in Romania is deteriorating rapidly. With luck we'll finish off Chisinev's defenders before the snow starts to fall there.
1800 10 October
The defenders of Wilno fall back, marking another province retaken from the fascist dogs.
2200 12 October
Snow falls in Chisinev. Drat.
0100 16 October
The weather clears in Chisinev, but the frozen conditions are still a major impediment to our attack.
1700 17 October
Bombers fly to (hopefully) speed the capture of Chisinev. Attacks on Zhitomir have finally stopped. We captured it in late August, and have been defending it against determined counterattacks for nearly two months.
0300 19 October
Production runs of unbrigaded infantry are cancelled, saving us some 35 IC. Between that and a moderate reduction in supply production (we're dipping into our vast stockpile now), 50 IC has been dedicated to divisional upgrades.
1300 19 October
Our forces roll into Chisinev immediately following a hard-fought victory. Fresh German troops immediately counterattack from Beltsy.
1100 23 October
The defense of Chisinev is only going moderately well; we're still not possessed of man-to-man parity with the Germans, but we do have numbers and reserves. Reinforcements arrive today.
1500 25 October
The Germans break off their attack on Chisinev.
0000 28 October
End of session.
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There's a new strategic direction poll up (kind of-- does anyone know how to change the end date of a poll, or delete the one I've already got up?).
The big lesson today is that commanders get very good pretty quickly with field experience, even if that experience started with a long string of defeats. A lot of our generals are skill 2 and 3 now, with a handful of 4s.
Poll
6 (60%)
Author
Topic: Arsenal of Democracy LP (1 October, 1944: Vperyod!) (Read 96065 times)