Stalingrad 42 Breakout Group Zhuravlev

[Plain Ian]

I’ve watched the replay and it confirms that most of my losses comes from the pocket. No big surprise.

Assault 1 comes in after heavy Nebelwerfer fire disrupts the 40th Motorised (-43 men). The 40th started the turn with 333 men and Fat 90 and end it with 227 men Fat 227. The 4th Gds Mortar lose one gun but somehow cling on to the game with one left. The link to the supply source at Svechinkovskiy is finally cut.

Assault 2 and 3 constrict the isolated pocket further.

The 303rd Sappers and the 1486th sappers are hit by combined fire and are disrupted. The 3/84th also is disrupted.

There are a few units not disrupted but most of them are Low Ammo. (40th Sappers, 1/40th Tank, 1/84th, 2/84th) The 3/753rd is the only unit not Low Ammo.
 
Elsewhere Mike forms a line in front of my armour approaching from the south. He does lose a tank using it to allow an infantry unit to withdraw from a zoc to a zoc. In fact he’s got a double line formed as you can see with stack A.

In the east he has pulled back his units as best as possible to protect his disrupted units. There are two which I can assault. The assault into the town against the Pioneers isn’t feasible as the tanks have no support and it just puts them adjacent to 88’s. (and of course it might not win)

My plans. Well it looks like 22nd Tank continues pushing north west whilst the infantry of 196th push north east against Verkne-Buzinovka’s back door. Artillery support is reasonable this turn and two Shturmovik groups are available.

One thing though. When I look at the amount of German units surrounding the pocket I know what Hitler felt with 6th Army at Stalingrad. If the pocket collapses quickly I will be swamped. I doubt if his units are accumulating a lot of fatigue and a large portion of these troops are A class units. However with 7-8 turns left I think Mike will take his time and finish off the pocket slowly whilst minimising his own losses so hopefully I won’t have to face this.