Cleansing the Motherland. GC42 NO CALLISTRID

[sillyflower]

Summer is here but all is not well in the Rodina. A grey scum has settled over part of our land. Led by the evil Feld Marschal Callistrid, jackbooted criminals steal from and murder our people.

Stalin has appointed Ministers Belphegor and Sillyflower (known and feared by their enemies as B&S) to scrub the land clean. An easy task for a pair of scrubbers: BS is the answer to most problems in life.

We have started well, with a Spring offensive in the Kharkov area. This masterstroke achieved its objective of making Callistrid think we are incompetent fools whose troops have no stomach for a fight. He will therefore fall for our trap by attacking too far towards the East, where he will be trapped at Ufa and killed. Well, his troops will be as Callistrid himself is usually only found in the fleshpots of Paris; only pausing every couple of days to move pretend cardboard counters around a pretend map and calling that 'generalship'.

HA! You will never find B&S doing anything called 'generalship'.

[sillyflower]

here is my prediction. Callistrid will do a Farfarer as copied by Pelton and run back to Poland with the intention of recapturing all the lost ground with his 1943 panzers.

We have made our initial dispositions on that assumption.

[Farfarer61]

ORIGINAL: sillyflower

here is my prediction. Callistrid will do a Pelton and run back to Poland with the intention of recapturing all the lost ground with his 1943 panzers.

so it's a"pelton" eh? I run to Poland months ago in the AAR and now not so much as a "by your leave". (insert Eric Idle Monty Python voice).

[sillyflower]

Apologies Farfarer[&o]

corrected above

[Callistrid]

South

The full southern front is routed, or encircled. The soviet forces need to reinforce the sector and try to build a frontline around the river.

[Callistrid]

Center

Well, most of the center and north units are static, so on the next 20-25 turn all my AP will be spend to reactive them.
The Demjansk pocket will be hold, and I break the bulge NE from Smolensk.

[hfarrish]

It will be interesting to see how the Leningrad front plays out here - tough nut to crack but probably the closest meaningful manpower objective to try and take. My one '42 campaign (long ago and when I was woefully inexperienced) I did not fare well in trying to crack its defenses.

[sillyflower]

This AAR has been reclaimed by the forces of freedom and light. I would post Callistrid's turn 2 but I can't open it. Either it's my computer's obscenity filter or he forgot to move the turn on.

[sillyflower]

Since my computer was in hospital with a nasty virus, I can't find Paint so will have to leave the posting of maps etc to Sean.

After Callistrid's exemplary T1, I ran most of the way back to Stalngrad and the Caucasus Mtns. We spent 200 APs activating troops in the northern half of the map (Sean's responsibility) with the intention of forming a hard shoulder that would force C to divert considerable forces to guard the flank of AG A+B.

On his T2 C went north trapping a few units but made no effort to follow up in the south except to move up to the Donets. Going north enables him to concentrate his forces, but the same is true for the good guys.

Sean broke his new pocket with 2 tanks corps, well spported by the Red Airforce getting medieval on the ass of 1/17 pz regt, and what's left of Rzhev pocket but neither will enable any units to be saved. 1/11Pz was summarily kicked out of Volovo (40 miles south of Tula) by a massed assault by our brave infantry.

This will be a fight to the death. Whose is anybody's guess... as long as everyone guesses Callistrid's[;)]

[Belphegor]

Maps were mostly lost in the hasty retreat, one however survives to show the Pocket South of Tula

[Belphegor]

And the south

[sillyflower]

T3 saw Callistrid cut off western front bulge with no hope of relief. 100 or so divs/equivalents in 3 turns was too much given replacements of 90K or so replacement per turn, and no APs to rebuild either as Russian C&C starts in a complete mess. All credit to C who played exceptionally well. We suggested restart but C suggested using ballaced GC42 mod as original version doesn't really give Russians a chance.

We are now restarting with that, so we will be seeing Callistrid in Berlin one day. We just hope to be the hosts.