Volodarsk-Volynskiy has been liberated!

[IV/JG7_4Shades]

The forces of Kampfgruppe Zwiahel have been eliminated to the last man by a Katyusha barrage commanded by Greykitten. VV is now entirely in Soviet hands, and the corresponding IF map will be disabled.

Meanwhile, Soviet forces have cleared the Zhitomir train station and are moving to consolidate positions across the town. Enemy sniper action is still being encountered, and armoured elements are still in the vicinity.

Cheers,
4S

[IV/JG7_4Shades]

Just for historical context, lets see when Volodarsk-Volinskiy and Zhitomir actually fell.

Zhitomir was liberated by FUF forces late on 31 December 1943, after encircling the town that day and achieving infantry penetrations into the town itself from the north and north-west. Soviet armour was on the north and south flanks, and in the rear of the German Korps to the west. XIII.AK fought their way out to the south, assisted by mobile operations of 7.PzD in the south.

PzAOK4 actually made a stand at Volodarsk-Volinskiy and repelled repeated armoured attacks against the town until encircled by FUF forces. Eventually, on the evening of 2 January 1944, the situation was hopeless and Kampfkommandant Zwiahel (VV garrison commander) was ordered to break out of the encirclement and move south to rejoin German forces near Vinnitsa if possible.

In our SEOW campaign, the German forces actually decided to make an armoured stand at Zhitomir, while moving most of Kampfgruppe Zwiahel west to reform for future actions. Volodarsk-Volinskiy, left with a skeleton garrison, has now fallen on 31 December 1943 after the remnant anti-tank defenses were isolated and destroyed by infantry and artillery action. Zhitomir is now being over-run, but only after German heavy armour exacted a severe toll on Soviet armoured thrusts.

So we have seen PzAOK4 being a little more flexible and conservative in our campaign by withdrawing where possible, rather than sacrificing its entire forces in a vain defence.

[greykitten]

Heavy toll that is...
This tiger might have taken the lion's part in our losses.

I m sorry we were not able to offer a last katuyscha powered fire work to this heroic crew.

Thanks for the context. Well done blues !