August - Southern Breakthrough

Progress is good on all fronts, though resistance seems to be stiffening, particularly in the north:

Soviet losses continue to mount, while the Reich's losses are acceptable:

The Fuhrer has acceeded to OKH's wishes concerning the Vilna Plan -- for the time being, 5th Panzer Group will remain with Army Group North and continue toward Leningrad. Manteuffel's group has surrounded the city of Pskov, so we will soon take that city. However the Soviet defensive lines forming to its north and east are concerning, and its mobility is very limited. At some point, if the Soviet strength becomes great enough in this sector, it may make sense to redeploy this panzer group to some other sector where it will be better-used. Panzers are wasted in dense battles over poor terrain.

We try to move up the coastline from Riga with a rear-echelon Hungarian expeditionary army, but they are moving slowly. This costs us precious Wehrmacht assets as we must maintain units on a front extending all the way from Pskov to Riga.

Army Group Center's panzer groups are attempting to catch a quick breath after closing the Minsk pocket, before turning their attention to Smolensk and the Dnepr:

Army Group South has successfully linked up with the Romanians! Over 500,000 Soviet soldiers are trapped between the Carpathians and the vise grip of Hausser's 4th Panzer Group. Meanwhile Rommel's 3rd Panzer Group has struck east to threaten Kiev and test the Soviet resolve in that direction:

Here's a closeup of the Moldova Pocket and the Romanian situation to the south:

We would like to move 4th Panzer Group out of the eastern length of the ring, so we can redeploy it for operations further east. It does no good babysitting a large encirclement, which can take weeks to reduce. But the Romanian portion of the ring looks tenuous, so we leave them be for the time being.