1 April
This month's objective is Memel. Tarnopol in the south is a secondary objective, with an eye toward using it as a launching point for further attacks and encirclements.
0100 1 April
The Germans launch attacks into Kaunas and Siauliau, into the flank of our ongoing assault on Memel.
1300 2 April
The Baltic states are thawing out. Curiously, it snowed not far from here a few days ago, making the Soviet Union warmer than Pennsylvania.
0700 3 April
The German attack on Kaunas fails (a good demonstration of why you don't attack swamps while it's raining). I worry about the possibility of a renewed German summer offensive in the coming months. Our center is a bit light on troops, so I'm taking a few infantry corps from the south and moving them up to strong points along the line.
0200 4 April
The German attack into our flank dies, along with another division's worth of German soldiers.
1500 4 April
Ded Moroz gets in one final punch; snow covers the northern part of the front.
0200 6 April
Heavy fighting continues in the vicinity of Siauliau and Memel. Our troops are getting the worst of it, it seems; we don't have the reserves to rotate like we did at Beltsy.
0200 7 April
The attack on Memel ends. We'll regroup and try again when it thaws/dries out.
1000 7 April
Khabarovsk comes under attack again.
1500 8 April
Vinnitsa and Beltsy come under attack, but the Germans don't commit enough to either attack to turn into a win.
0900 10 April
The Americans give up quickly in Khabarovsk.
2100 11 April
The German attack on Beltsy ends with two divisions of German troops dead.
1400 14 April
Fighters fly patrols over the northern Baltic Sea, hoping to intercept bombers headed to Finland, which are a continuing problem.
Vinnitsa comes under attack again.
2200 16 April
More attacks start against Zhitomir and Khabarovsk.
1200 17 April
If this is all the Germans can muster, their summer offensive isn't anything to worry about.
1700 18 April
Notice that the Americans are wearing out some of their units against Khabarovsk. Notice also the combat bonuses and maluses for this particular American armored division, which are pretty representative:
From top to bottom:
- Offensive Leader is one of Patton's leader traits.
- Combined Arms is a bonus that mechanized forces or infantry get when they're in a force with infantry or mechanized forces, respectively.
- The stacking penalty is designed so that the effectiveness of a force increases with the square root of its size.
- On unit cards, experience is given in points, where 20 is moderately experienced and 60 is pretty veteran (though not a limit by any means; for comparison, most of our main corps have units with about 40 experience, and one or two have cracked 60). That number is divided by 4, then applied here.
- Mountain and night are terrain/weather effects. Mountains are especially hard on armored and mechanized attackers; they're good for defending infantry. Handy.
- Leadership is a 2.5-point bonus for every skill level of the commander of the corps the unit belongs to. As far as I can tell, the only effect the overall commander has is on the frequency of combat events (if he has those traits).
- Panzer Leader is another leader trait.
- Lack of Supply is calculated dynamically every hour or so, based on the supplies that can be delivered to the province in question. Units on the attack take up a ton of supplies; units who've had the Offensive button hit (remember that one? I haven't been using it to save supplies) don't have nearly the same kind of supply issues.
- Decryption comes from having a superiority in Decryption tech vs. the defender's Encryption tech. We'll have that ground made up in a month or two.
1200 19 April
We win again in Khabarovsk, although the bloodiness of the fight and relative nearness of the casualty count compared to some of our actions over the last few months suggest that the advantages of winter are wearing off. Also included is the state of the Western Front as of this moment.
2000 21 April
Siauliau comes under attack. It's an important point in our lines, and the Germans are understandably eager to kick us out, but this attack won't be enough.
2200 22 April
The German attack lasts just more than a day. Manpower is becoming a serious concern, though; as we reinforce units from the attacks on Memel and (to a lesser extent) Beltsy, we've gotten down below 700. Notice that running out won't be the end of us, it'll just mean reinforcements are slower to arrive and we'll have to pause a lot of production lines.
0400 27 April
The Germans attack Vinnitsa again.
2300 29 April
Now the Germans attack Kaunas, but lose in Vinnitsa. The Americans join the party at Khabarovsk.
1700 30 April
The Americans lose at Khabarovsk and the Germans lose at Kaunas, where the mud and swamp work to our great, great advantage.
1500 2 May
I hope to attack Stanislawow from Beltsy, Mogilev-Podolski, and Vinnitsa in the near future. I'm waiting for the mud to dry out before I launch the first wave.
0500 3 May
The Germans lose four men for each one of ours in Siauliau, then decide to go again immediately after.
1300 4 May
Victory in Zhitomir.
1000 7 May
Another bloody victory in Siauliau, with one of the craziest casualty ratios yet.
In the Stanislawow region, bombers are flying night sorties and attacking roads and bridges before the attack. Since Soviet attempts at blitzkrieg against first-class opposition have failed miserably in the past, I suspect that delaying supplies and reinforcements will be much more telling than attempting tactical bombing.
1900 10 May
Victory in Siauliau.
0700 11 May
Beltsy is the grave for another 50,000 soldiers, 40,000 of them German.
Also, we launch the attack on Stanislawow, from Vinnitsa, Beltsy, and Mogilev-Podolski. The German troops, 42 divisions on paper, have less than half that strength for real.
1700 13 May
Rain hits Stanislawow, muddying it up again. I'm not afraid to pull back if this attack shows signs of going anything but perfectly.
The Americans attack Khabarovsk again.
1600 14 May
Bobraisk comes under attack for the first time in quite a while.
0500 16 May
The Americans give up at Khabarovsk.
1500 17 May
Victory in Bobraisk.
The Germans are sliding reinforcements down the front, from Tarnopol and points north into Stanislawow. Since I'd rather not have to deal with that, I've ordered an attack using the reserve in Vinnitsa and all the forces in Zhitomir.
1300 19 May
Bombers behind the lines show that Stryj is also providing reinforcements to Stanislawow. If the Germans leave it too empty, I'll send some of Beltsy's reserve in.
0900 22 May
Siauliau is under attack again.
2100 24 May
Siauliau is defended successfully.
0500 26 May
Stanislawow is a victory for us! We even managed a great exchange casualty-wise.
1400 27 May
And soon after, Tarnopol falls to the advancing Soviet army.
0000 1 June
As the summer campaign season really gets going, we've broken things wide open in the south.
----
Three points to make before I go off for the weekend:
1. There's a poll coming tomorrow for strategic direction.
2. Manpower remains a major concern. I'm not really able to do anything about that, though, besides win and limit production of manpower-intensive things.
3. The south suddenly looks very, very weak in the north-of-Romania area.
Poll
6 (60%)
Author
Topic: Arsenal of Democracy LP (1 October, 1944: Vperyod!) (Read 95066 times)