Jango32
Posts: 307
Joined: 3/15/2021 Status: offline
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Turn 2 Army Group South Objective recon east Looks like the road to Kiev is pretty barren, with surviving Southwestern Front units and the Southern Front defending along Mogilev-Podolsky. Unfortunately, in this sector recon was not quite correct, as we shall see soon... Objective recon south Looks like mind_messing is determined to defend ahead of the Dnestr at least for this turn. No quick snatch of Odessa. Pocket recon Thankfully, all three pockets hold, with Galicia in prime position to be isolated this turn. The most shocking turn of events has to be the fact that mind_messing did not cut off the leading spearhead near the Romanian border. If he's reading the AAR, I hope he'll leave a post as to why he did not make such an obvious move(in my opinion). 6th Army and the infantry of PzGr 1 will eliminate the Rovno pocket, while 17th Army will move into more advantageous positions to eliminate the Galicia pocket and also to further weaken Soviet defenses by routing units where judged to be appropriate. Mogilev-Podolsky encirclement move 1 I start the chain of events leading to a new pocket by clearing the way for 11th Panzer to advance using a German infantry division and two Romanian units. Mogilev-Podolsky encirclement move 2 I probe the way forward with the Romanian armoured division and it seems to bear fruit. I did notice, however, when I moved one hex up that Rezina did not flip, so I undid the move by pressing 'u'. It's a really useful mechanic to utilize when probing for pockets. Mogilev-Podolsky encirclement move 3 Kempf's units near Tarnopol and Proskurov start probing and encounter a mechanized and a tank division on a hex. The motorized division manages to brush them aside, thankfully not too far away from where I wanted to create the pocket. I take the Mogilev-Podolsky hex afterwards with a Romanian cavalry brigade, and 11th Panzer follows in its wake. Mogilev-Podolsky encirclement move 4 11th Panzer flips hexes as it now begins working on the Yampol pocket. The way seems to be fairly clear of Soviet forces, doubtlessly the result of cutting off Southwestern Front's escape route along the Romanian border with 11th Panzer on turn 1. Mogilev-Podolsky encirclement move 5 I break down the Romanian division into regiments to probe further, and it looks like we've hit the jackpot - no defenses that prevent the Yampol encirclement from happening. Vinnitsa pocket probe Further probes with Kempf's regiment and Hube's corps reveals that Vinnitsa is vulnerable to being pocketed. Correspondingly, all that is left to do is seal it with units. Zhitomir pocket This is where recon failed in the south. I started moving III Motorized corps' units towards Zhitomir, brushed aside some fortified units with regiments, and noticed ZOC when trying to advance. Further inquiries were made and a significant concentration of Red Army forces was found near Zhitomir, though the city itself was empty. von Vietinghoff's corps moved to assist von Meckensen with sealing the pocket, and some of Hube's unfrozen units will also be needed to seal the pocket (Wiking and LSSAH). Army Group South end of turn Because of no serious pocket breakout attempts and not cutting off the spearhead near the Romanian border, I decided to be bold and go wild in the south with pocket forming. I did not anticipate that I was going to create 5 separate pockets when I got in-game to see what turn 2 looked like however. Unfortunately because the displayed CV was not encouraging, I had to use a regiment and a motorized division in a deliberate attack near Zhitomir to create the pocket. Neither LSSAH nor Wiking had enough MPs to grab the essential hex to properly seal the Zhitomir pocket, and at the time I didn't know that isolated non-motorized units always received 8 MPs no matter what.
< Message edited by Jango32 -- 12/27/2021 2:03:40 PM >
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