Székesfehérvàr or Stuhlweisenburg was the largest city between the German Lines and Budapest during the Conrad III offensive of Januari 1945. Capture of the nearby airfield was a top priority although no one could say where the Luftwaffe would find the planes to fly from it. And so, in the morning of the 20th of Januari, the 3rd SS Panzer Division got the task of clearing out the Russian defenders. The German onslaught came from the southwest of the airfield, while the Russian 93th Rifle Division, together with elements of the 237th Tank Regiment, made sure to dig in along every morsel of limited terrain en route towards the airfield. Since the area was covered in deep snow, the Germans planned to keep to the roads as much as possible but got a rude welcoming. An intelligent Russian LT 7-0-0 had climbed the only hill in the vicinity and let it literally rain OBA shells on the German columns. To make matters worse, a Russian ambush by ATG blasted 2 HMG platoons and their transporting SPWs, to smithereens when they foolishly tried to bypass the village situated just in front of the German entry zone. So, all the trucks were abandoned and all German infantry was left slogging through the snow for the next 6 Km. After clearing the Russians from the town with the AT guns, all the divisions’ Tiger II, together with a column of PzIV and a few companies of Grenadiers took the road northwards towards the next town. The rest of the division followed suit but when traffic jams started occuring, most troops veered of the road, taking the shorter cross country route towards the airfield. These moves were painfully slow! So slow that practically all the Russian troops covering the western road , could retreat safely back to the airfield. Once there, they started digging in around the runways, turning the site into a veritable fortress. Only a few platoons and a great Kommissar stayed behind to pour flanking fire on the marching Germans. Those Germans, especially the infantry, had a miserable time, having to constantly leave behind injured and demoralized troops. When the Königstigers ran out of road, the march westwards got even slower, a measly 800m per hour. But with Russian JS II tanks on the prowl, those Tigers had to take point. All other armour stood little chance against those mighty Russian hulks. And that point was firmly driven home, when after making short work of the first 2 platoons of JS II they encountered and thinking the threat was brushed aside, 3 Pz V platoons surged forward, straight into another Russian trap. Suddenly all hell broke lose when another 2 platoons of JS II tanks opened fire from a nearby wood. As luck would have it, not a single Panther got hit. Rather foolishly, the Panthers returned fire instead of retreating and letting the Tigers mop up the Joseph Stalins.Those Pz V gunners turned out to be the best shots of the division. At maximum range, 3 of the 4 salvos hit the dug in JS IIs, leaving only burning wrecks for the Tigers. Once again the German commander acknowledged that he couldn’t defy luck any further and assigned the vanguard back to the Tigers. Slow but sure, the Germans closed in on the airfield and its surrounding fortress, but when the last JS tank finally was destroyed, all armor “raced” towards the objective. And then another lucky strike for the Germans, the airfields’ Kommissar was taken out of action by OBA. And when the German armor finally arrived at the airfield, everything started happening at the same time. At 14.00h the Russian Colonel was mortally wounded and from then on, the German tanks proved unrelentless, pounding the Russian lines from close range and smashing huge holes in the defensive line. Three turns later, with only 2 turns left on the clock, it was officially all over when the last defending Russian unit died valiantly for the motherland, leaving the airfield firmly in German hands. Step losses were counted and these numbers were horrifying, especially because of the amount of OBA available to both sides during this battle. In the end the Germans lost 41 steps, all infantry or SPW, not a tank step was lost. The Russians on the other hand, lost an appalling 123 steps. A few moments from this 20+ hour game will go down into our gaming memories: • Those unbelievably lucky Panther gunners: 4 shots on an 11+ resulting in 3 hits, wow! • The Russian 7-0-0 LT that rained death on the Germans from turn 1, decided to take care of a bunch of leaderless M3s that got stuck inside a nearby wood. As such, he released a bucketload of possible fresh firepower into the rear of the German columns. It took the Puma and a Tiger unit more than an hour to finally silence them. • Turn 26 started with these incredible German combat rolls, all on the 45+ direct fire table: double 1, followed by another snake eyes, followed by boxcars! And all this using the Russian players’ dice! That raised some emotions! We had a blast playing this scenario. Ok, the Russian victory conditions are ludicrous but their troops can make life a living hell for the German commander. So we would like to score this scenario with a whopping 4/5