[RT] Operation Gory/More

[sourdust]

Hi all - attached is my first effort at a scenario. It covers Operations "More" and "Gory", launched by the Soviets in the Caucasus in January 1943. The Soviet's goal was to cut off Army Group A entirely by a rapid advance north from the Black Sea Coast through Kransnodar ("Gory"), together with an attack on Novorossisk ("More"). Simultaneously, a close pursuit of the German forces pulling back from around Grozny would occur.

The operations were hopelessly ambitious for the forces at hand. The Russians faced the more-or-less intact German 17th Army defending around Novorossisk & Maikop, and the First Panzer Army withdrawing back to Rostov. With most reserves going to the Stalingrad/Rostov battles, the Soviets in the Caucasus had to make do with insufficient support. The offensive was kicked off in terrible weather, through rough terrain.

The German 17th Army was able to withdraw in good order after a series of holding battles to a strong defensive position in the Kuban, where they maintained a bridgehead for the next 8 months, while the 1st Panzer Army pulled back without great difficulty to Rostov, where it participated in the desperate battles there covered by the "Rush to Rostov" scenario in the first Unity of Command game.

In this scenario, the Soviets must press hard in the east to cut off the Germans supply lines, while choosing attacks in the west carefully to works towards the objectives. The Germans won't make a serious stand at Maikop, but Krasnodar and Novorossisk will be very difficult to take unless supply lines can be cut.

I'd be grateful for any suggestions on how to improve this scenario! Enjoy. A BV is possible, but it requires a bit of luck and some deft maneuvering. Against a human opponent, I think the Soviets would have little chance of success.

(Note: I have not included most of the 1st Panzer Army or the opposing Russian forces, as they were drawn into the fighting north at Rostov. This scenario focuses on the first of many Soviet attempts to seize Novorossisk and the Kuban. The German OOB is pretty good, but the Russian is a bit approximate. I couldn't find a good OOB online anywhere for Russian forces in the Caucasus as of 11 Jan 1943, so I had to do a bit of estimation and extrapolation from other sources.)

[Stahlgewitter]

Nice.

Were those the official Russian 'code' names of the operations? It seems moronic to name a military operation after the axis of attack We called it Overlord rather than 'Operation Normandy' for a reason.

[sourdust]

Well, I'm going off secondary sources, but I've seen references to Operations "Gory" (Mountains) and "More" (Ocean) in a few places - see, eg

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=nObOBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT172&lpg=PT172&dq=operation+gory/more+caucasus&source=bl&ots=SIjZJ66zxl&sig=7S0Qsl-z_XYhXSU2tZeFEdsTdyA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HAfYVP6FBM2D8gWPkICYBA&ved=0CDMQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=operation%20gory%2Fmore%20caucasus&f=false

Yeah, kinda silly to be so obvious in operation names. Then again, subtlety wasn't really the Red Army's strong suit!

x

[Danielefc]

I've never thought about the naming of Soviet operations prior to this. Its kinda hilarious - I'm guessing they weren't quite as obvious as it seems - but still.

"Operation we have so much more s*** than you guys so we'll just tell you what we're gonna do to even things out m'kay"

[MarjaE]

One of my favorite scenarios. The weather and the German actions pose different challenges, but there's some time to adjust, so bad weather is unlikely to decide the game.