Perfectly General - The Bryan Front has just ceased to exist.

Due to the extra distance that would be travelled by Guderians force, his attack began 2 days earlier than the other assaults to the north. The Russians had spent two months building field fortifications and over 800,000 men faced the Germans  however they were mostly raw replacements with little training and poor leadership. The defences along the River Desna were arranged in two echelons with no reserves of any strength in the rear. Guderian's Panzers broke the line in the Sevsk area and rushed north-east to Orel. After the war, Guderian noted in his book 'Panzer Leader' "Our seizure of the town took the enemy so completely by surprise, that the electric trams were still running as our tanks drove in." To the north the 1st Cavalry Division found the going hard and barely penetrated the Russian defences, they were withdrawn to Gomel and the next month dismounted and became the 24th Panzer division. Further north II Army was making slow progress so Guderian swung the 17th Panzer and 29th Mot Infantry Divisions to the west to attack Bryansk from the more weakly defended eastern side, the city fell on October 6th. The first snows fell on October 7th, it melted quickly, but was followed by heavy rains. "The roads rapidly became nothing but canals of bottomless mud," Guderian wrote, "along which our vehicles could only advance at a snail's pace and with great wear to the engines."
