Fire in the East - 1941-1945.

[Pegasus]

(Battle of Chernigov ctd)

In the meantime, I attacked the hexes marked. (x), with the outcome shown in the map below.



The results were mixed, I advanced in places, but in the two battles marked (X), there was plenty of retreating but one or two units in the stack held out and burned my turn! As I was attacking conservatively with minimised losses, these units will start his next turn with these settings, and are in mobile status. Not the ideal situation for defence!

I have moved up the Abn Div from Kiev and reforming elements of the 6th Army to hold up the formation threatening my flank.

Quite a few of my air units rallied this turn, so I moved them forward at the end of the turn to support my forces during my opponents turn.

The Axis continued to attack all along my line, with the outcome below.



To my surprise, the formation to the south didn’t try to cross the river and outflank Chernigov (which would have compromised all my forces in the west of the river), but he wheeled them north to join the attack at crossing C/D. Also, my force at the north of the battlefield is now being threatened by the advancing Axis forces that have crossed the Dnepr further north.

Its time to pull back. The following two Maps show the progress of my withdrawal, in fair order to, good defensive positions.





I regard the battle of Chernigov as a tactical success that has supported my overall objectives. Over 5 turns a large number of enemy formations were stopped in their tracks. I spotted the complete formations of the 44, 45, 56, 86, 293 and 298 Inf Divisions, the 3, 9, 13, and 14th Panzer Divisions, the 10, 16 and 25 Panzer Grenadier Divisions, the SS Das Reich and the SS Wiking. And they all took a beating.
As an added bonus, many of my units have gained some valuable combat experience (and survived) which has boosted their proficiency. Elements of the 5th Mech Corps and 21st Army have proficiencies above 60%, from a base of around 45%

Its time to look at what’s happening elsewhere in the campaign.