September - Fall of Kiev
September -- the rainy season begins with earnest, grinding Army Group Center to a halt. Still, weather is better in the north and Army Group North is able to send Soviet defenses reeling. We stand at the gates of Leningrad there, and meanwhile in the south Rommel has made a historic dash across the Ukrainian steppe to capture Kiev:
Soviet losses are mounting fast as we continue to encircle and annihilate swathes of enemy forces:
Most notably, the lower bound on the estimated Soviet divisional strength has dropped below 200 for the first time (but the upper bound is still frightening). Who can say how many enemy troops lurk in the distant Russian interior?
Army Group North is reinforced with a fresh infantry army (20 divisions) and is able to send the Soviets into freefall. With 5th Panzer Group stalled after encircling Pskov, the fresh infantry was sent up along the coastline to the west, outflanking the enemy and placing sizeable forces within striking distance of Leningrad:
With the Soviets seemingly on their heels, AGN presses the attack into Leningrad proper. Meanwhile 5th Panzer looks to cut off the city by pushing east to Lake Ladoga, but meets heavy resistance:
It appears STAVKA has reassigned Marshal Zhukov to the defense of the city. Will he live up to his reputation as the Red Army's fire-stopper?
Things are much less positive with Army Group Center. With Minsk taken the panzer groups push on toward the Vitebsk-Smolensk corridor and prepare to cross the Dnepr. But heavy rains turn the supply situation into a mess. With so many units concentrated in a small area east of Minsk and rail supply unavailable, the panzer groups are no longer fit for offensive operations. OKH makes a snap decision and redeploys them to the north of the corridor, distributing our forces a bit more evenly and keeping the armor in a sector with better infrastructure to support rail supply:
The panzers trap a sizeable Soviet force northwest of Vitebsk, and threaten to cross the river to the east of that city. But every time they move far enough forward, they are ground to a halt by the muddy conditions. Time grows short. Notice also that the infantry has managed to secure a crossing over the Dnepr to the southwest of Smolensk. If we can get a spell of clear weather, the panzers can use this bridgehead as a jumping-off point for another dash east into open country.
Army Group South has similar problems with weather, but not before Rommel's panzer group strikes out to the east and finds a surprising lack of Soviet resistance there:
The Soviets seem surprised to see us at Kiev so soon, and appear to have focused most of their efforts on relieving the Moldova Pocket. Rommel marches into Kiev without much resistance, but is unable to force a crossing over the Dnepr. Supplies are also a problem in this sector, and Rommel is unable to move forward; the last two weeks of September the Soviets throw furious counterattacks at Kiev but cannot dislodge us.
4th Panzer Group has been temporarily withdrawn from forward positions so it can adequately resupply and refit. The weather and muddy conditions are so bad for forward (motorized) supply that we cannot support two simultaneous panzer group advances.
In the extreme south, we cooperate with the Hungarians and Romanians to collapse the enormous Moldova Pocket. Once complete, this will be perhaps the most devastating blow to the Red Army since the beginning of the campaign. They have blundered badly in this sector, allowing Kiev to be captured with minimal effort and allowing the bulk of the Southwest Front to be surrounded. They also continue to leave 30+ divisions in the Pripyat Marsh, despite no signals that the Wehrmacht is willing to go there. In October, assuming all the conditions are right, we will again follow history and deal with them by linking up panzer elements from army groups Center and South east of the Dnepr.