Stalingrad 42 Breakout Group Zhuravlev

[Plain Ian]

A quick look at situation in the south. No real progress here. 

I've shuffled the 91st north (Mike is doing the same with the 369th) which allowed me to move away the two T-34 Bn's. The 370th has moved over to the right flank to try and help push this enemy group away and widen the breach before I move forward. The 358th has moved north to also do a similar job.

I swopped over the 1/20th and 3/20th because I didn't want a disrupted unit next to him. 

I've quite a bit of artillery here and I managed to disrupt two of his units. One was digging in and this disappeared so was visible during the turn. The other one showed up when I clicked turn end.
I spread out my artillery fire as I think this stops fatigue recovery? (maybe this is a PzC misconception?) 

The right wing of the 196th continues its slow progress. Hopefully this might make him fold back his units west of Yevseyev?

[Plain Ian]

VP totals for the end of the turn. I have narrowed the gap as you would expect since its my turn. I have 2 cut off Battalions (400+ men) and will possibly lose more whole Battalions in the pocket. So things will get worse before they get better......if they ever. I will pick up some VP hexes and if I want to be ruthless I could hunt down and kill his Broken units in the east.

Its early days in the game and I can but improve. I hope he is planning on resting at night then continue the swarm tactics tomorrow.

[Plain Ian]

German Turn 6



German turn back and he has opened the points gap.

[Plain Ian]

German Turn 6 Group Zhuravlev



As expected the Germans have followed me up. The two cut off units in the west have been multi assaulted and the 2/249th is down to 18 men and the 1/753rd has just 21. Amazingly the 1/753rd is only at Fatigue 69! Both units have tied up 5 German companies for a turn and knowing the PzC engine will probably take another turn to kill.

My failed airstrike against his T mode infantry has resulted in the 3/427th being isolated.

In the south heavy infantry hit the 1/294th and disrupted it and the 3/753rd was also singled out for some reason. The 415th AT Rgt was hit and lost a gun and disrupted. Its ripe for assault.

In the north the 1/88th received most of the artillery fire and also disrupted. Thankfully it recovered. The 3/676th was heavily assaulted by 3 companies and pushed back. However it also has recovered. 

The 4th Gds Rgt lost another gun but this time to ground fire. Its in danger of being isolated. Thankfully artillery units have a zoc unlike ant tank units? Not sure if this is right? I suppose an artillery unit has a higher complement of men so in theory they can all grab rifles and form a cohesive perimeter to interfere with enemy movement.
Actually in this game all towed units are just about static targets. This area has a lot of streams with no bridges which means they cannot move very far when limbered.

Anyway the Germans did take some casualties this turn. (58) 

Note the map above shows most of the significant casualties not all of them.

[Plain Ian]

German Turn 6 South.



Only one significant move here. The 3/20th was assaulted and pushed back. 

In the replay I saw a few of his units move in the east before dusk and the 2 hex visibility swallowed them up.

[Plain Ian]

Russian Turn 7 Group Zhuravlev



Points loss for my turn are shown in the map. Will post the VP Chart showing totals later. Most of the casualties and action happened in the south and east this turn.

I continue to fall back. I am running out of streams to slow him down. 

The 2/40th is despatched to save the 3/427th and I am forced to pull down the 644th to replace it. This leaves only the 1/40th in the north. (I labelled this 650th by mistake in my German Turn 6 map) Usually trying to save cut off units dooms the rescue units as well as the cut off units. I hope this is not the case here. 

I still have not closed the gap south of the 2/40th but hopefully he does not have anything to exploit this. I did get one break this turn and that was my artillery attack against his infantry south of my disrupted AT unit. (not labelled but its the 415th) With a bit of luck it will remain disrupted and not be able to assault.......

[Plain Ian]

Quite a lot of movement for little end results. I can't show too much detail as it would be too confusing.

Attacks made on 305th using artillery and assaults. The assault on the disrupted unit failed miserably. I moved up the 2/863rd to assault again but I ran out of movement points. 

The 364th moved up to support the 2/20th and 55th sappers attacks. During the movement the 3/20th was disrupted by return fire. 

After artillery the 1/20th assaulted and threw back the company of the 113th which advanced last turn. The 371st advanced to support this with its T-70's. Hopefully this will stop him assaulting back.

After fire from the 359th (T-34) I attempted an assault with the 358th T-70 Bn but it failed. (enemy not disrupted) I moved up the 163rd and will try again next turn.

[Plain Ian]

The attack on Nizhne-Buzinovskiy begins.

[Plain Ian]

Not the best of moves. Mike has left the AT unit as a rear guard. I thought I could quickly blow it away. I'm 2 tanks down after return fire took out a T-34 and a failed assault cost me a KV-1!!! Afte pressing turn end I noticed that the panzer jaegers were disrupted.....

Down at the other end at Osinovka the 378th moved to support the Sappers evict the enemy. They will need it as the Sappers disrupted under return fire.

In the centre the 2/22nd gained another hex after another costly assault.

With night coming the 51st Motorcycle Bn was pulled back to secure the rear.

[Plain Ian]

Turn 7 Russian results