General Keating has very little to report today, which can’t be good.
Some stragglers were duly dispatched (see above) but its hard to imagine OKH
getting excited about that. Keating’s drive on ROSLAVL
in the extreme south of the line is being conducted solely by infantry regiments,
and judicious use of detachments and the terrain by Trout is limiting the German’s
advance. Keating’s closest panzers are almost due north of ROSLAVL,
still slogging their way through some bad terrain. There is clear terrain ahead,
but time is running out to exploit it. Note also in the combat shot that Trout
has deployed four Supply Trucks to try an counter any interdiction by the Luftwaffe.
Comrade General Trout delivers another master class in counterattacking. The German 82nd Infantry regiment of the 31st Infantry Division has unwisely pushed ahead of its line, into Clear terrain in the vicinity of a large number of Russian (see above). Trout carefully moves units away from the front of the German regiment, ensuring that there is a hex free of Russian ZOCs into which the German can retreat. Note that because of the position of Russian forces behind the 82nd, the hex immediately behind it, which contains its own units, is covered by Russian ZOCs ( see below).
Trout then attacks the 82nd. It is a full strength regiment, but because it is in Clear terrain an attack at 2:1 is sufficient to almost guarantee a retreat, which is duly obtained (see below).
The 82nd is forced to retreat into an empty, ZOC free hex in preference to one covered by a ZOC and is now dead, even though it has only taken a single step loss. Trout then surrounds the hapless 82nd, (with units that were retreating in that direction anyway, and it is finished off (see below).
Elsewhere, Trout kills an adventurous Engineer in the north, but is otherwise
content to retreat in good order all along the line.