melnibonian
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Turn 3: 6-13 July 1941
“Comrades, citizens, brothers and sisters, men of our Army and Navy! I speak to you my friends! A serious threat hangs over our country. It can only be dispersed by the combined efforts of the military and industrial might of the nation. There is no room for the timid or the coward, for deserters or spreaders of panic, and a merciless struggle must be waged against such people. We must destroy spies, agents provocateurs, and enemy parachutists…anyone who hinders our defence must be shot…The enemy must not find a single railway-engine, not a wagon, not a pound of bread nor a glass of petrol. All the farms must hand their herd to the official bodies and be sent to the rear (of the USSR). Everything else…must be destroyed.”
Comrade Stalin getting ready to address the Soviet people and demand the expulsion of the Enemy
Heeresgruppe Nord
In the North our troops eliminated the last pockets of resistance around Pskov and XXXXI Pz.Kps and LVI Pz.Kps kept up the pressure on the Soviets. The Red Army kept retreating and has created new defensive positions on the Parnu-Soltsy-Velikie Luki axis. This development will probably force us to slow the pace of the advance as the bulge created in the area between Smolensk, Velikie Luki and Novgorod must be dealt with before any attempt towards Leningrad takes place. Because of this development 18.Armee will continue to advance towards Talin and 16.Armee will swing East to block the Soviet forces in the area around Velikie Luki. For this close cooperation with Heeresgruppe Mitte will be required.
Pskov's city centre after the expulsion of the Soviet garrison
Heeresgruppe Mitte
This week 2.Panzerarmee and 3.Panzerarmee managed to exploit the initial penetrations achieved earlier and drove deep into the rear of the Soviet defences along the Dnepr. 3.Panzerarmee faced fanatical resistance but after days of hard fighting managed to capture Vitebsk and secure the Land Bridge to the Dnepr. 2.Panzerarmee smashed through the Soviet defences in Rogachev and Zhlobin, crossed the Dnepr and achieved deep penetrations behind the enemy positions. SS-Inf.Div. mot. Das Reich and 10.Inf.Div. mot. reached the outskirts of Smolensk in the evening of 12 July, thus undermining the entire Soviet defensive positions in the area. Further west 3.Pz.Div. and 4.Pz.Div. captured Orsha and Liozno and linked with 14.Inf.Div. mot. closing the encirclement of the majority of Soviet troops defending the approaches to Smolensk at the Dnepr. The massive cauldron created contains 17 Rifle Divisions, 3 Mechanised Divisions and at least one Tank Division and it is expected to be reduced by the combined efforts of 9.Armee and 4.Armee within the next couple of days.
This massive encirclement has all but sealed the fate of Smolensk as it is impossible for the Soviets to mount any type of effective defence of the city. We expect to capture Smolensk within the next few days. Despite this critical success there are two urgent matters that Heeresgruppe Mitte has to deal with in the next couple of weeks, namely the massed Soviet formations on its flanks. North of Smolensk Soviet troops are massing in the area around Velikie Luki and it will require the combined efforts of 9.Armee and 16.Armee to dislodge them. OKW is already drawing plans for an operation and we expect to start putting things in motion next week.
Further south large numbers of Soviet troops are massing in the Pripyat region and although their position is ultimately unattainable due to our advances in the areas of Kiev and Domanovichi they also have to be dealt with. OKW together with 1.Panzerarmee are already working on a provisional plan to isolate these units and destroy them, but no decision has been taken so far.
Artillerie-Regiment 14 (mot.) of 14.Inf.Div. mot. engaged in fierce fighting in Vitebsk
Heeresgruppe Süd
This week our Hungarian and Slovakian allies with support from 17.Armee managed to reduce the massive cauldron created in the area around Lvov. Some Red Army units are still putting fierce resistance but we expect to clear the area within the next couple of days. Further North 6.Armee has cleared the Pripyat area and advances in more suitable ground. This week 1.Panzerarmee has conducted what can only be considered textbook Bewegungskrieg operations slicing through the Soviet defences and isolating 4 enemy Infantry Divisions and one Tank Division. This small Kessel although important as it managed to isolate Zhitomir and cut-off the Soviet forces south of Uzh from the massed formations in the Pripyat area is not the most notable achievement of the battle fought. III Pz.Kps and XIV Pz.Kps in close cooperation performed a reversed front operation that lead to the aforementioned encirclement, the capture of Zhitomir, Novogrod-Volynsky, Brusilov and Kiev by 16.Inf.Div. mot. Simultaneously XXXXVIII Pz.Kps. widened the gap and protected the flanks of III Pz.Kps completing the Kessel and pushing the remined of the Soviet forces in the area behind the Dnepr.
Further South 11.Armee and 4.Rum.Armee continued the advance and have managed to cross the Dnestr in multiple locations.
Sentry on the bell tower of Kyiv Pechersk Lavra immediately after the capture of the city. St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery and the burning Yevheniya Bosh Bridge are also visible
Operational Summary
During last week we have suffered 31,042 casualties (15,347 killed, 20 captured and 15,675 disabled), lost 470 guns and 167 AFVs. The Soviets have suffered 398,896 casualties (28,111 dead, 238,202 captured and 87,583 disabled), lost 7,558 guns , 1,569 AFVs and 414 aircrafts. In total so far in the campaign we have suffered 69,087 casualties (37,171 dead) and lost 1,269 guns, 310 AFVs and 161 airplanes, while the Soviets have suffered 1,100,374 casualties (147,326 dead and 696,207 captured) and lost 20,972 guns, 5,569 AFVs and 3,858 airplanes. These losses are truly crippling for the Soviets and OKW is convinced that they will find it very difficult to acquire the resources needed to continue the fight in the near future. Despite our undoubtable success we can see that we have achieved an average of 1:10 kill ratio in both land and air (taking into consideration the men killed) that is very advantageous to us. Nevertheless we can see that Soviet resistance is stiffening, something that can be seen by the increasing casualties we are suffering, especially in the number of men killed that it is increasing alarmingly every week. This is a further indication that we must bring forward the encirclement of large formations of the Red Army and destroy it in a series of Kesselschlachten as soon as possible and definitely before our losses reach unacceptable levels.
Evacuation of injured personnel after the battles around Zhitomir
Strategic Situation
Overall the strategic situation is unaltered with the frontlines firmly established in Cyrenaica. 5.Jg.Inf.Div. together with the Italian 102ª Divisione Fanteria Trento have isolated Tobruk and continue with the siege. The situation for the Deutsches Afrikakorps is far from ideal as our supply convoys are continuously attacked by the Royal Navy and (to a lesser extent) the RAF from bases in Malta. On 5 July Royal Navy Torpedo planes sunk an Italian Destroyer outside Tobruk. Probably the most important development of the week is the announcement that Britain and the USSR signed a mutual defence agreement on 8 July, promising not to sign any form of separate peace agreement with Germany. How much of an effect this will have on our struggle remains to be seen but OKW is convinced that we can manage to kick the USSR out of the war within the next two months.
PzKpfw II of 8.Pz.R. of 15.Pz.Div. preparing defensive position in Sollum
< Message edited by melnibonian -- 4/4/2021 8:53:42 PM >
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