Turn 1: June 22-29 1941

First and foremost, an obligatory unit-counter icon reference:

The only counters that really matter at this point are the top two (armor and infantry) and the motorized infantry (left column, third from the top).

Barbarossa opens with the Luftwaffe taking advantage of complete Soviet surprise. In the early hours of June 22, bombers hit every airfield reachable in western Russia known to be occupied. The results are devastating for the Red Air Force:

Around 3500 Soviet planes have been destroyed overnight, with 3330 destroyed while parked on the ground. But how much damage have we really done to the Soviet air arm?

We are still heavily outnumbered, but the Red Air Force in 1941 is bloated with swathes of obsolete planes that are no match for the likes of our BF-110's. So the quantitative advantage is somewhat negligible in these early days, and the enemy aerial presence in our immediate area of operations has been virtually eliminated. The air strikes are difficult to show on the zoomed-out map, so these will be shown in the group-specific sections that follow.

Operations - Army Group North

Soviet border defenses in Lithuania are easily overrun and the panzers exploit the gap, advancing over 170 miles and fording the Dvina:

Panzer Group 4 has two armored divisions on the northeast bank of the river, in prime position to make the approach to Pskov in week 2. Notice however the large gap between the mobile units and the foot infantry, even after just a few days of operations. Infantry support lags 60+ miles behind the slowest-advancing panzer division, although infantry progress was somewhat slowed by border-penetration attacks early in the week. The Soviets have very little left to oppose us west of the Dvina, so at this point there is not much concern over the panzer group becoming overextended and/or cut off.

The circular icons on the upper map show battle sites during the first week. Notice how sparse they become after we make the breakthrough at the pre-war border. Panzer Group 4 alters its course slightly, crossing downriver from Daugavpils as it's defended by a couple of Soviet airborne brigades. Manstein's corps posts a motorized infantry division on the right flank to cover any attempt by those units to cut into our supply lines.

Operations - Army Group Center

As planned, Panzer Group 2 breaks along the northern edge of the AO, taking Vilnius and reaching the northern outskirts of Minsk. Panzer Group 1 breaks through in the south, completing an encirclement by meeting up with the northern pincer just north of Novogrudok:

The infantry probes along the border and pushes through at the weak points. 4th Army (the dark blue counters) tightens up the ring in the south, and sends what it can east to bring up the rear for Guderian's panzers.

One early complication is the Soviet fortress at Brest-Litovsk, which is not worth risking heavy casualties assaulting on turn 1. We surround it and will wait for supplies to run low before reducing it, but must do this quickly as it sits on the rail route along which we want to advance the railhead. We will have to take it in the first week of July to put Panzer Group 2 in a good position to force a crossing over the Dnepr in mid-July. The plan for turn 2 is for both panzer groups to push east and link up at Berezino, encircling Minsk, and crossing the Berezina River where it is shallower.

Guderian's group can decide whether it wants to make a parallel thrust to Bobruisk and then move on either Mogilev or Zhlobin. Hoth's Panzer Group 2 has fewer decisions to make and will move northeast to the Vitebsk-Smolensk land bridge. The ultimate goal for July is to establish a link-up between these two groups east of Smolensk and create a massive encirclement. We don't expect much resistance until we hit the Dnepr, which STAVKA is likely to invest sizable forces to defend.

Operations - Army Group South

As expected, progress is slower in Ukraine. The Soviet Southwest Front has a good amount of armor there and Panzer Group 1 has to be selective about where it decides to commit itself to battle:

The first week is good for about 110 miles of eastward movement, but there are still Soviet holdouts pinned between our left flank and the Pripyat Marsh:

The enemy unit counters have values at the bottom like "5=12". The second number is an estimate of defensive value. Our counters have values like "11-6", where the first number is attack combat value. You can see that some of these enemy units are quite strong and we cannot risk losing large numbers of men and vehicles at this early stage of the campaign. While it is tempting to engage Soviet armor in open terrain, one of our top priorities is the preservation of the fighting strength of our own panzer units. The goal will be to try and encircle these units instead of open engagement, but we also want to prevent them from escaping eastward to defend Kiev and the lower Dnepr basin area.

One thing I neglected to mention is that the formations on our extreme right flank, 11th Army and the Romanians, do not "activate" until turn 2. So they sit idle for the first week of the campaign, which is unfortunate because our attempts to create a big pocket around Lvov will be delayed. The Soviets will try to move as much out of here as possible before we can cut them off.

Casualty Report

The Soviets take a modest beating during week 1, with almost 100,000 men killed or captured (most of them fall into the latter category). Most of these take the form of border units routing or surrendering, leaving behind vast quantities of vehicles and equipment. We also augment our truck pool where we can, capturing over 1000 enemy trucks, and press them into service moving supply to the front.

Axis losses are relatively minor, but 64 armored fighting vehicles is a bit higher than we would like.

Enemy Action

The enemy wisely chooses not to attack on turn 1 and focuses on extricating units out of potential encirclements where possible. Already recon flights are showing Soviet concentrations beginning to form some way off the front, out of harm's way for the moment.

Defenses are beginning to formulate around the Pskov area, and Panzer Group 1 will have to make way quickly before those can be solidified. Reserves are beginning to accumulate just west of Velikie Luki, where they can be shifted either northwest to impede the drive to Leningrad or south to harry the flanks of Army Group Center:

In the center, STAVKA attempts to evacuate the Bialystok pocket to the northeast and temporarily retakes Vilnius:

Meanwhile Minsk appears to have been largely evacuated. Not much can be seen standing in between Guderian and the Dnepr, but defenses around Vitebsk are already beginning to surface along Panzer Group 3's axis:

In the south, we are unable to prevent large numbers of enemy units fleeing the forming Lvov pocket into the Ukrainian plain. Enemy units along our northern flank seem to have disappeared, perhaps via rail out of the Pripyat Marsh:

However enemy units still stand in the way of Panzer Group 1's forward progress. 11th Army and the Romanian contingent activate, but look like they'll have a rough go of it on the way to Odessa: