Slitherine

Western Europe:
French partisans captured Dijon along with its airport in Eastern France. Most likely this airport serves as a base for the Allied bombers over Germany now! It will take our Italian infantry in Bourges some time to get there…
England:
Axis troops are moving towards Liverpool while the RAF got distracted by German ships South of Ireland. Advancing in England without constant loses due to air raids is not easy.
Dönitz’s submarines have sunk the entire British home fleet in the North Sea.

Turn 69 – 8 April 1944
Weather: clear and dry

Ostfront:
Soviet paras landed East of Moscow. Guderian is slowly moving the forces that occupied Moscow for two years further East.
The Tigers arrived around Kursk, almost too late again as von Kleist and Guderian have made some good progress already. Von Manstein seemed right with his suggestion of mobile defense tactics. The clear spring weather helped the Luftwaffe as well.
Middle East:
Russian tanks appeared in the mountains East of Ardabil, where were they hiding?

German paras landed near Baghdad.
North Africa:
Regia Marina is attacking the AA outside Alexandria.
England:
Manchester airport has been seized.

Turn 70 – 23 April 1944
Weather: clear and dry

Overall situation:
OKW is pleased with the recent developments in the East while von Manstein is already dreaming of a massive and potentially decisive encirclement of Russian forces around Kursk and further East. However, OKW still feels significant time pressures and sees no major change in the short to mid-term objectives.
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The Luftwaffe completely lost control over the airspace in Western Europe. However, it is still able to deploy bombers along with fighter protection in the East.
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Ostfront:
Guderian with Army Group North has left his defensive positions in Moscow and along the Oka River and is advancing towards Gorky now.

Von Kleist has taken over the responsibility for the Axis forces around Bryansk and Orel and is advancing towards Kursk and Kharkov.
Von Manstein is holding the line in the South. He has been promised additional forces to launch an attack on Stalingrad.
Middle East:
Paulus seized Hamadan and is advancing towards Mosul in the West and Baghdad in the South.

North Africa:
Rommel is still stuck in front of El Alamein and needs to hurry up a bit, also in light of the difficult terrain around Cairo and the Suez Canal.
The Italians are continuing their advance towards the African Atlantic coast and are currently heading towards Fez in Morocco.
England:
Also von Rundstedt should hurry up in Northern England given the air superiority of RAF. However, the British Isles seem less of a concern compared to other theaters.

Turn 71 – 8 May 1944
Weather: clear and dry

Ostfront:
Vologda remains a target for Russian counter-attacks from a Northern and Eastern direction.
Given an imminent Russian offensive towards the Southern flank of Army Group North, Guderian decided to stop the tank offensive towards Gorky and enforce a preemptive strike South of Ryazan… Guderian was also very impressed by the new IS-2 tank but it is also no wonder weapon…
Von Kleist almost eliminated all armored enemy units around Kursk and is heading to the Don River.

Also Kharkov and Belgorod further South are expected to fall very soon.
Von Manstein keeps pushing towards Stalingrad. However, he will still require more artillery and armored units to launch an effective offensive.
North Africa:
Rommel is finally attacking the Northern fortifications of El Alamein and Regia Marina is providing very important naval gunfire support. Furthermore, some reinforcements from the Tunis area are joining his forces, they had a rather long commute…

Last stand of Dönitz’s submarine(s) close to the coast of Faro. Most likely these five destroyers (at least those…) won’t go on any offensive operation into the Mediterranean Sea anymore!
England:
The Axis advance towards the North continues only very slowly due the RAF/USAF dominance. Glasgow is in sight by now at least.
Western Europe:
As expected, the seized Dijon airport is being used as a base for enemy aircraft in continental Europe!

Turn 72 – 23 May 1944
Weather: clear and dry

Ostfront:
Vologda seems a tank/AT magnet?! It has been manageable so far as long as they can be ambushed or forced out of ammo somehow, e.g. by encirclement…
Kursk and the Northern Don River seem in reach.
The area around Kharkov is under control. Belgorod and Izyum have been seized already. Shortening the front line in the South helps in establishing offensive pressure given limited resources.

Middle East:
Paulus is advancing through the hills towards Baghdad and its oils field as he is expecting road blocks and additional enemy forces along the main route.
North Africa:
Rommel is forcing a breakthrough in the North but unfortunately Regia Marina seems almost out of ammo already.
England:
Leeds has been seized but no further tank advance possible/reasonable at the moment due to heavily entrenched enemy units in difficult terrain and continuing Allied air attacks. Axis infantry needs to catch up first.

Turn 73 – 7 June 1944
Weather: rain and dry

Ostfront:
Kursk and Kursk airfield are under Axis control, well done Army Group Center! Von Kleist informed the OKW that he is planning to advance further East.
North Africa:
The way to Alexandria seems almost open.
Scotland:
Von Rundstedt almost reached Glasgow while Dönitz is distracting enemy air planes by sacrificing the remaining Kriegsmarine in the North Sea.

Turn 74 – 22 June 1944
Weather: clear and dry

Ostfront:
On the day, three years in… is the Russian Bear already shaking? Well, not as much as the OKW would like him to… Guderian finally had to send a StuG unit towards the Vologda area North of the Volga River. It can now also protect/support a potential Northern pincer movement towards Gorky.
Guderian is again continuing his main advance towards Gorky South of the Volga River. He also considers to cross the Oka River South of Gorky to further advance towards Ulyanovsk further East. However, information about number and strength of potential enemy forces on the Eastern banks of the Oka River are very limited so far.
In the meantime, von Manstein is getting more and more impatient as he is still waiting for additional troops or reinforcements but OKW hasn’t sent him any yet. His concern is that Stalingrad is very well guarded by heavily entrenched units backed up artillery that might take some time to defeat. Maybe he needs to reconsider his initial plan of attacking Stalingrad with armor from the East in winter?

Middle East:
Hungarian, Romanian and German infantry units are advancing towards Mosul.
Paulus is launching his surprise attack on the oilfield adjacent to Baghdad. At the same time the German paras are attacking from the South.
North Africa:
Breakthrough at the first (and only) El Alamein battle… However, the Suez Canal is still very far!

Surprise around Fez – so there are still some US troops left on the African continent? How did they miss the battle of Tunis?
Balkans:
Heavy partisan resistance has been reported from the Balkans, especially South of Belgrade. The number of Axis occupation forces had to be increased over the last several months.
Pripet Marshes (Ostfront hinterland)
Also the Pripet Marshes have been heavily guarded since a few months due to several partisan operations seizing several nearby cities, e.g. Lutsk, Minsk and Gomel. Currently the situation seems under control again.

Turn 75 – 7 July 1944
Weather: clear and dry

Ostfront:
Heavy Russian tanks North of Gorky (probably on their way to Vologda again).
Guderian and von Kleist realized that Tula can become (in fact it is already...) a real road block on von Kleist’s advance East. Therefore, an attack on Tula has been launched.
Von Kleist’s problem is that he cannot easily cross the Don River anywhere further South and that he wasn’t able to break through around Voronezh yet.

Von Manstein’s troops reached the Don River crossing as well but don’t dare to cross the river without real tank support.
Von Manstein was allocated an additional tank and he sent it to Astrakhan immediately. He is now really pursuing his goal of establishing a small mobile army around Astrakhan to attack Stalingrad from the East… well, let’s see if/how this will happen?
Middle East:
The Baghdad oil field has been seized and the British launched an immediate counterattack!

Again road blocks/minefields between Mosul and Kirkuk. A heavy Churchill tank has also been noted.
North Africa:
Agadir has been reached by the Italian Sahariana that was crossing the desert on its own.
Remaining US troops are being cornered North of Rabat. It is expected that they will be defeated shortly and the remaining cities can be occupied by Axis forces without further resistance.

Turn 76 – 22 July 1944
Weather: clear and dry

Ostfront:
Tula has been captured by Army Group Center!
Middle East:
Heavy defense and subsequent retreat around Kirkuk. Well, at least it served as a diversionary attack...
Heavy fighting around Baghdad. However, the Baghdad oil field remains under Axis control.

North Africa:
Rommel reached Alexandria and the British garrison forces seem exhausted and out of ammo.
Western Europe:
Again, French partisans captured another airfield in France to support Allied bomber raids over central Europe.
Scotland:
Newcastle in England has been seized and von Rundstedt stands with tanks in front of Glasgow. However, he reckons that Glasgow should be seized by infantry that can actually defend it against potential counterattacks from the Scottish Highlands?