Episode 3 - Wehrkrisis in der Heimat
Turn 59 (2/12/45)
BERLIN: Reinforcements are an VG Div, an SPG Bde, and a Flak Reg (all reconstituted).
AIR: 3 for 34.
POLISH INTERIOR: A small band of guerillas was surrounded and forced to surrender SW of Lodz.
NETHERLANDS: Whoomp, there it is!
Trapped in the pocket (those remaining) are an infantry battalion, 2 dozen SPGs, a handful of artillery pieces and Nebelwerfers, and dozens of AA guns.
I am shortening the line at the small bulge E of Malmedy. I'll start it off today with a single division, and pull out the rest in a couple of days. This is to give those staying behind time to re-prepare the defenses. The units I intend to send north are indicated. Should I consider dividing up that big arty stack as well?
WEST 2: Same deal. This and the reorganization above may also allow the Americans to shift 1 or two divisions to the salient.
WEST 3: Well, maybe if I can dig in while spreading his forces out, he won't be able to effect a local advantage anywhere.
Yeaaaah... 
BUDAPEST: Not too much activity here, but I've spotted a Guards Rifle Corps moving up from the Soviet rear. In the other circled location, they have brought up a tank brigade. Could the Soviets be preparing for another attack on the Balaton flank?
The battalion-strength Hungarian 2 Szittya Div has reconstituted here.
HUNGARY: That Jaeger Div is in tatters now. It may even be defeated today. Polizei is quite strong and has good reconaissance assets, and so should have no problems disengaging to retreat. I could do the gamey thing and screen the former's escape with an RR unit, but I don't want to give up those positions just yet. The jagers will have to hold until forced to flee. Ofcourse, severely depleted and exhausted units are brittle, and have a nasty tendency to disintegrate under heavy pressure.
Those impetuous Hungarian uh, Slovakian partisans are once again infiltrating into my rear in their numbers. The Hussar regiment tried to rout them, but inexplicably dissolved before the attack even began! After the debacle, I quickly railed in some SS partisan-hunters (bottom left-most).
Oh, and I forgot to mention: those two Panzer divisions with black counters are, from bottom to top, Leibstandarte (200 tanks) and Frundsberg (67 tanks). Hopefully this powerful SS presence in the Southeast will pay off one day.
Lastly, note the entrained unit: SS Batschka. It and the Hungarian division north of it are moving into the sector above.
POLAND 1: That RC has wriggled into my rear. It is now well-placed to participate in pincer attacks. Best would be if they distract themselves an attack on my very flank. They could also go against my fresh ID, which would cause heavy damage but which would not destriy me, I think. Worst of all would be an attack on the weakest part of my line there. A hole blown into my line there could be fatal. The gravity of the situation has led me to call two divisions to the area: a Hungarian ID that was in reserve near Kosice, and SS Batschka from Austria (half my precious daily rail transport). Of course, the RC, being behind enemy lines, is unsupplied. Being also utterly exhausted and low on supply, it will suffer heavy penalties (namely, desertion effects.
At top, a reserve RC has been detected. My ID was driven back. What a ruined division looks like:
POLAND 2: Well, isn't that horrible.
Both of the hexes in that bump were attacked. The PzGren Div split into regiments and fled. Thankfully, it is still in relatively good shape, though it did take a beating, losing up to a battalion. In the other hex, a few dozen tanks held the line; the AA elements withdrew.
Next point of interest: SS Januar is in bad shape and may soon give way. Fair enough. I shifted those reserves there.
Third: only an SPG Bde remaining. Two puny battalions, with 33 Tigers. It's not enough - and I'm dry.
Too many Guards. Too much armor.
POLAND 3: In Warsaw too, only an SPG Bde held out to the conclusion. I do have some sort of ID in reserve here, which I have comitted, but it was more or less the extent of my uncomitted force around the city. The Soviets can afford to slam into me daily; they have thicker skulls. I'm dazed, and it can't be long before a strong blow drives the bridge of my nose into my brain.
Farther north, out of desparation, I'm sending a newly reconstituted Volksgrenadier div and Flak reg, despite their poor cohesion and low supply levels at the moment. I don't have the transport for anything else.
It seems they don't have quite enough to exploit the gaps to the same extent as the Americans have in the West. I'm sure there are reinforcements en route - it's just the state of the local rail network that's causing delays.
They're coming.
PRUSSIA: Still there. But 5 RC (soon to be 6) and a TC cannot be resisted for long.
The SS Nederland was shipped in from Stettin.
KURLAND: A Soviet destroyer flotilla has returned for a second time, after it was defeated twice (December, January).
Naval combat is abstracted in this game, because the designers only ever did serious work on the land model. As a result, ship-to-ship combat works more or less like counterbattery fire. They're really just artillery units on blue-colored hexes with lots of movement points. Cobat results are grossly unrealistic. One minor improvement was, however, included with the latest patch: naval units now get very little supply when at sea; it's incentive for the player to keep his ships in port whenever possible (which you'll notice I haven't really done; well, they're fairly useless by now, eh? I mostly just pretend that they're on patrol in the North Sea). 
I 'won'...
Re: Gotterdammerung - A German WW2 DAR
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Looks bit dim for the Germans, no surprise there. Do you think you could have any possibilities for strategic withdrawals in any fronts in order to shorten your lines or redeploy to a better defensive positions, or are your troops too committed everywhere to even try any such thing?For example, would it be possible to abandon Italy and set a defensive perimeter to Alps, in order to gain more reserves for other fronts?
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