Last time we spoke about the continued drive towards Moscow. In the autumn of 1941, a winter-thin road stretched from Leningrad to Moscow, watched by two vast armies. On one side, shells and steel; on the other, stoic resolve. Mud, Rasputitsa, dragged wheels and tested men as much as enemy fire. The Germans pressed from the Ukrainian plains, chasing a swift triumph, while Zhukov’s Soviets rebuilt lines and held a stubborn defense around the capital. Cities along the road buckled under pressure, yet the Red Army stood shoulder to shoulder with civilians, brick by brick staving off encirclement. Bryansk and Vyazma glowed with brutal fights; yet the Germans found no easy path. The Red Army’s manpower, once underestimated, surged back with veterans teaching newcomers, even as many units forming in the field faced shortages and fatigue. Kalinin became a crucible: tanks clashed with captured bridges and muddy streets, as both sides paid a heavy toll. Stalin’s pressure and Zhukov’s improvisation produced new fronts and counter-strokes, transforming despair into a stubborn, almost defiant, endurance. The Germans, starving for fuel and momentum, slipped into the mud that slowed their advance to a crawl. By month’s end, Moscow loomed but could not be seized in the teeth of relentless Russian resilience. This episode is the Tikhvin Offensive Well hello there, welcome to the Eastern Front week by week podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800’s until the end of the Pacific War in 1945.  With Vyazma crushed, Army Group Centre pivots toward Moscow, while Army Group South presses on to seize Ukraine’s industry and fuel. Yet weather grows harsher and resistance thickens as Typhoon and the Rasputitsa grind the advance to a halt; a northern offensive opens up, panzers surging toward Tikhvin and the last supply route to the besieged Leningrad. Between October 16th to the 20th, 1941, finds the Germans racing to win before the Russian winter takes hold. The disaster of Vyazma and Bryansk forces STAVKA to rebuild in front of Moscow, a rebuilding that comes at the expense of other fronts. The 4th Army is reduced to three rifle divisions, one cavalry division, and a lone tank battalion, stretched over fifty kilometers, with its only reserve a single rifle regiment. All of the 4th Army’s formations are seriously understrength. Likewise, the 52nd Army is trimmed to two rifle divisions, exhausted and depleted, supported only by four artillery regiments and an anti‑tank regiment, but with no reserve frontline formations, leaving the 52nd with the daunting task of covering an eighty‑kilometer front with minimal backing. In nine inches of early-morning snow on the sixteenth, the 21st and 126th Infantry divisions surged across the Volkhov, pressing against the surprised, thinly stretched, undermanned 288th and 267th rifle divisions. Behind them, the 8th and 12th Panzer divisions moved with the 20th Motorised, carving a path through the white. Four days of brutal fighting pushed the 288th and 267th eastward, widening a breach that exposed the southern flank of the 292nd Division and left it to be shattered by a flanking hammer. With reserves nearly non-existent, the assault ripped a massive hole in the Soviet front between the 4th and 52nd Armies. Soviet reconnaissance again failed to warn of the attack. A