Insufficient Resolve ETO (id:#65476)

(ASL Starter Kit Bonus Pack #2 ID: S84)   [next]   [previous]

Krapivinskii Vtoroi, Russia 1941-08-02 (4 others)

Overview:

In an effort to replicate the spectacular successes at Belostok and Minsk during the first weeks of BARBAROSSA and to prevent Soviet forces from escaping towards Moscow, Generalfeldmarschall Fedor von Bock’s Army Group Center initiated an encirclement of Smolensk. By the second week of July, however, it was evident that Soviet resistance in the Smolensk pocket was greater than anticipated and would take longer than hoped to reduce. Hitler, fuming at the delay, issued Directive 34 on 30 July which temporarily halted Bock’s drive on Moscow in favor of armored thrusts towards Leningrad and Kiev. Generaloberst Heinz Guderian’s Panzergruppe 2 moved southeast of Smolensk where it encountered Group Kachalov, an ad hoc Soviet formation under LT. General Vladimir Iakovlevich Kachalov assembled to relieve units trapped in the pocket. Kachalov launched a series of costly frontal attacks that the Germans easily repulsed. Guderian than slipped south along the Roslavl-Smolensk road, where Soviet forces attempted to regroup in villages around Roslavl in an effort to slow Guderian’s advance.

Defender: Russian (149th Rifle Division and 104th Tank Division)  

Errata (source)