Fronte Russo, scenario #27: Serafimovich: Day One

This is an interesting scenario! One, the forces composed against each other are so different. The Soviets are mainly Armor, T34As & BT7s with SMG and Leaders riding in on the Armor against the Italian forces of tons of Infantry and even more Artillery & AT Guns as well as Support Weapons, Trucks and Leaders. The Italian Infantry & AT guns start close to the front but the majority of the Artillery starts on the West end of the board and must race up to support the Infantry. The Soviets enter on the East side of map board in two groups, one not entering until turn 3 of a 12 turn game. The Victory Conditions are set at different point levels of eliminated units.

I had no idea on how to approach this battle, for either side, so it was very interesting to play and try to figure out both sides options. The Soviets went right to the move up and attack mode, while the Italians had to scrabble to get setup in defensive positions. Some of the Artillery could not made it up to the front safely and had to setup farther back in support but some made it up for direct support & AT fire support. Just enough in fact to swing the battle, as the Italian Infantry also had the East Front Panic rule in effect for the Infantry & HMG units.

The Soviet SMG units suffered miserably with so many Italian Artillery types blasting them and separating them from their armor. The short time factor hurt the Soviet armor as well and they lost two steps of T34As not to mention 4 steps of SMG infantry, while the Italians lost two 81mm units overrun, one truck and one Leader. Thus the Italians scored 8 points and the Soviets 2 points giving the Italians a minor victory.

I still believe there are many approaches to this scenario and either side can win, but I think I need to dump off the Soviet SMG units much earlier in a safer location and forget the Italian Infantry units and go right after their artillery units at all risk. I’ll have to try this one again. Very nice scenario, especially with the odd forces and the very small time frame for both sides.