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Liberation of Taganrog 1943 is available for download

CapHillRat

Command Ops Scenario Designer
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Oct 22, 2014
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Well some entries on the Russian wiki are actually correct, others are exaggerated or somewhat inaccurate.
https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=de&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.de&sl=ru&tl=en&u=https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/416-%D1%8F_%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%B8%D1%8F_(2-%D0%B3%D0%BE_%D1%84%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BC%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F)&usg=ALkJrhiJ0YObouS51Yei85pFB_B8oykbYQ#.D0.9E.D1.81.D0.B2.D0.BE.D0.B1.D0.BE.D0.B6.D0.B4.D0.B5.D0.BD.D0.B8.D0.B5_.D0.A2.D0.B0.D0.B3.D0.B0.D0.BD.D1.80.D0.BE.D0.B3.D0.B0

The Russian wiki entry above - covering the liberation of Taganrog - states that the 44th Army's 416th Division entered the outskirts of Taganrog at 5 a.m. on the 30th of August and that it completed the liberation by 7:30 pm the same day, after having performed a 20 km-push south towards Taganrog. That surely means that the units in front (east) of the elements of the German 111. Inf Div never attacked, indeed.
Search requests made by descendants of German MIA soldiers hint towards the presence of the 50th Grenadier-Regiment (or some of its sub-units) in Taganrog, at least.

A detailed map from the war diary of the 336. Inf Division detailing the positions of the 111. Inf Divisions lined up at Uspenskaya (I do not know where that town/village is or was located, yet) on the 27th of August, at 6 a.m. :

View attachment 1911

The arrows just north and east of Uspenskaya display Russian attacks that were repulsed, the large note in the sector assigned to the 686th Grenadier-Regiment translates to: "enemy forces could not be identified, as prisoners had not been made". The southern sector was held by the 15. Luftwaffenfeld-Division, but the 111. Inf Div was assigned to the sector northwest of Uspenskaya !!!
Elements of the 111. ID were actually encircled in Uspenskaya, but they managed to break out and escape with the other units of the XXIX, so I really wonder where that town was, now, hehe.

On the 29th of August the 111. Inf Div was placed on the left flank of the 15. Luftwaffen-Division at Latonovo, southeast of Anastasiyevka (entering "Anastasiyevka Ukraine" in google maps might actually lead to the historical location, as the village southeast to it is Latonovo, on there, indeed):

View attachment 1910

That's it for now, need some rest.
With the current info level, I'd say the bulk of the 111. ID was busy northwest of Taganrog and busy defending and joining/following the 13. Pz.Div's attempt to breakout, minus the 50. Grenadier-Regiment (or elements of it) and minus the 117. Artillery-Regiment (or elements of it) which then left their positions in or east of Taganrog around the 30th of August. Russian sources state that the Russian 416th Division cleared remaining forces in Taganrog ("street by street"), it's not totally clear, though, as the Krupp facilities operated in Taganrog were ordered to evacuate machines, slave workers and material (not sure if this was accomplished with machines and material, a number of workers had tried to avoid evacuation and kept hiding inside and outside the city until the liberation, just to get accused of collaboration with the enemy, afterwards, btw.), industrial facilities and power plants were then demolished, with a number of buildings burning (due to the "scorched earth" order), so it's possible that they "just" wiped out remnants that had covered the withdrawal and that the Russian propaganda spiced it up, a bit, as the 111. ID elements cleary managed to withdraw from the heights east of Taganrog, and as elements of its Art.Regt clearly retreated west along the coast, according to witness accounts.

If you ever want to create a Taganrog 2.0 version, or if you ever want to re-arrange the scenario, I might be able to help (if I have time).
I know I haven't even played the scenario yet, and it's a semi-historical scenario, so I hope you don't take my 22.7 cents as critizism, bashing or whatever.
Cheers.
It's been on my to do list to get back to you about these comments but work has gotten in the way. I've followed your comments closely and I can't tell you how much I appreciate all of the detail. What an amazing amount of information. I will work on a Liberation of Taganrog scenario 2.0 soon and send to you for your review. It will be smaller obviously and less dramatic than the 1.0 version. Again, it's a great forensic look at what likely happened.
 

CapHillRat

Command Ops Scenario Designer
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Oct 22, 2014
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Hi Goodguy. One more comment, I think Uspenka, Ukraine is the Uspenskaya in the old map you had. Krynka river is behind it just like the map.
 

GoodGuy

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May 20, 2015
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Cologne
Hi Goodguy. One more comment, I think Uspenka, Ukraine is the Uspenskaya in the old map you had. Krynka river is behind it just like the map.
I didn't have time to reply, but I read your post. The problem with the German sit maps is that they used to germanize City/location names to some extent, and Google (or similar sources) displays "americanized" names, but also transliterations of Russian names.
A similar example would be Russian names, where the German versions are closer to the original Russian names (nowadays at least) than English versions/spellings:

Michail Sergejewitsch Gorbatschow (German spelling)
Michail Sergeevič Gorbačёv (German transliteration)
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbatchev (English spelling)
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachov (English transliteration)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Ru-Mikhail_Sergeyevich_Gorbachev.ogg
His name is definetly pronounced gorbaCHOV and not "chev".


So, this makes it harder to pinpoint locations, and - on top of that - you have towns/villages that disappeared, that were given up or renamed either after Stalin's death or after the Sovietunion fell apart, when the Ukraine declared independence from Russia. Also, some villages were never rebuilt, after the Germans had destroyed them during their retreat, and other villages remained ghost towns for years, after the jewish inhabitants were executed by the Germans in 1941, until they were removed from official maps, eventually.

Let me know if you start working on the senario.
 

col.sanders

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Nov 25, 2016
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Hey j. van Limpt ,go to link in first post on upper left corner click command ops download sledgehammer the lib of taganrog comes with it.
 
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