Kiev: Largest WW2 Encirclement

Largest WW2 encirclement hinges on dicy two-pronged panzer maneuver around Kiev

Kiev: Largest WW2 Encirclement is a strategy boardgame set on WWII Eastern Front in 1941, modelling the historical events at divisional level. From Joni Nuutinen: By a wargamer for the wargamers since 2011

You are in command of the German armed forces planning to create the largest encirclement in the military history by using two fast-moving panzer pincers, one from the north and one from the south, to encircle the huge number of Red Army formations located at and behind the city of Kiev.

Historical background: Due to the economic importance of the southern USSR, the most and best Soviet units were placed here. This meant, that when the Germans invaded in 1941, the southern group advanced most slowly.

Eventually, Germans postponed the middle group's advance towards Moscow that was evacuated and empty, and decided to turn the famed panzer divisions led by General Guderian southwards towards the rear area of Kiev.

And if the southern group's own panzer army could finally get their act together (they were also tasked with seizing the massive industrial city of Dnepropetrovsk) and advance north to link up with the Guderian's panzers, a million Red Army soldiers could be cut off.

In spite of his generals' pleas, Stalin refused to empty the Kiev area until it was too late, and instead kept on sending more and more Red Army reserve troops towards Guderian's armored pincer in order to stop the German encirclement movement and hold on to the industrially important area.

The result was a colossal battle that pulled in more and more divisions from both sides as overstretched Germans simply struggled to cut off and contain such an unprecedented number of Soviet Armies in the operational area.

Do you have the nerves and maneuvering skills to drive two narrow wedges deep in the USSR to pull off the historic encirclement in a timely manner, or do you cave in and choose a wider yet slower attack? Or maybe your panzer pincers themselves will cut off...