Broken Axis: Scenario Three, Sledge Hammer of the Proletariat

This scenario looks fun on paper with one Romanian Battlegroup, one German Battlegroup and three Soviet Battlegroups, with victory conditions all about town control and eliminated enemy steps, so a bloody battle it will be. Also it is a three mapper.

The Soviets have their new JS2 and of course their standard T34C and SU76s and the Germans bring on their Panthers and Tiger Is and all three countries bring Infantry and support weapons of all types. The Romanians start embedded in all the town hexes on maps 103 and 105, so the Soviets must weed them out while fighting a German mobile force as well.

I won’t go into all the highs and lows of 24 turns but it felt like a Soviet victory as they controlled all the town hexes but one. That one town hex had one disrupted ½ step Romanian Infantry unit and a leader in an ongoing assault hex. The Soviets needed one more turn, as they controlled all the town hexes and road hexes and eliminated 51 enemy steps compared to their losses of 43 steps. So the Romanian won a Minor victory with eliminating 25 or more Soviet steps. I felt cheated as the Soviet player, as they controlled the battlefield but this one contested town hex, that need most likely one more turn to win.

This was a bloody battlefield.