Siege of Vraks - Small Gains: The High Commander of 88th Army, Lord Commander Zuehlke, observing from his distant headquarters on Thrace Prime was keenly aware that he had been given 12 years to recapture Vraks. Twelve years with the full support of the Departmento Munitorum for supplies and replacements behind him. His campaign plan had been brutally simple and carefully laid, with great care given to the logistics required and little thought of the casualties it would entail. He now had just three years left to complete his mission. Given what still faced them, no staff officers seriously believed that the 12 year timetable could be maintained. What happened when they ran out of time nobody yet knew. Most likely it would mean failure and defeat, because the intensity of the war would no longer be maintained, supply priority would slip, regiments might be withdrawn and re-deployed and so the prospect of ultimate victory would recede, leaving the 88th Army trapped in a war they could not win. Cardinal Xaphan might not have realised it yet, but if he could last three more years, then he would have ridden out the storm and survived. His forces had also suffered the horrors of trench warfare and heavy losses, but somehow they had summoned up the strength to endure the strain of nine years of total war. They had a fought a defensive campaign and bled the Imperium’s forces whilst minimising their own losses. They still had the stockpiles, the men and the will to fight on.Lord Zuehlke’s problem was straight forward. Time was against him, hence a renewed offensive was of the utmost importance, but the commanders on the ground were reporting that their efforts to crack the second defence line had worn their fighting strength down. The losses in men and equipment had been staggering. The enemy continued to fight hard, at times fanatically. To renew the offensive against the next line of bunkers and trenches would be futile and just result in more losses for no gain. They lacked the fighting power to make any worthwhile inroads. The 18 siege regiments of the 88th Army needed time to dig in deep and re¬supply, to rebuild their strength for the new offensive that would see them tear into the enemy again. In the meantime they would continue to harass the enemy with artillery fire, trench raids, and small attacks aimed at draining resources, but an all out offensive was impossible. Of course a lull in the fighting also gave the enemy time to recover, re-arm and re-organise his defences.With any hopes for an immediate offensive quashed, the Death Korps began their slow, remorseless advance. Digging trench lines as they went, they moved up to their new frontline, surrounding the inner defence lines. All the time harassing enemy fire threatened sudden and unexpected death, but the work continued, day after day, week after week, and the landscape of Vraks became riven by a maze of dug-outs, communication and supply trenches running back as far as the second defence lines. This avoided the necessity to use the surviving service roads, which had long been pre¬targeted by enemy artillery whose accurate barrages made movement dangerous as clusters of shells suddenly fell without warning.