The Grossdeutschland engineer battalion assaults Soviet guards holding a hill. Soviet set-up placed the ATR's on the "wings" of the 20-m hill level and the 57mm AT gun back covering the approach to the summit. For good or ill, the 76.2 gun was placed in the northern 60-m woods to combine with the 81mm mortar for an 18-factor on-board artillery. Soviet defenders included twice Hero of the Soviet Union Captain 11-1-1.

The Heer set up in the woods to the south of hill 256 on board 6. Set-up was more or less symmetric about the N/S axis to fool the left (Soviet) side of my brain as to the schwerpunkt. Although the battalion commander was leading the assault up the hill, the troopers knew that the most important man in the field was the holder of the Assault Badge in Gold, Leutnant 9-2-1.

The first few turns made the Russian commander's decision to keep the 76.2mm gun as a BF piece precient. Although no German step losses for the first three turns, red and black markers were distressingly to be seen. "Had the men been at the Schnapps last night?" wondered the now quite concerned battalion commander. That's when a platoon of SPW's fell victim to Soviet AT fire.

The Germans had finally managed to get their collective act together - as the Russian artillery began to become a bit scattered - and closed with their opponents (with the weight to the West) to engage in some "softening up," when a Soviet machine gun burst cut the Engineer major in half. Ironically, Grossdeutschland's fire began to pick up and hurt the Soviets badly (and pushed a leader forward so that their OBA pounced on the Soviet AT gun), but lacking organization, could not immediately follow up the fleeing Soviet platoons.

Once the decapitation freeze wore off, the German advance was fairly inexorable. The Soviets were able to slow German platoons here and there (German morale had stiffened), but Leutnant 9-2-1 was simply spreading carnage about.

An '11' on a 45-col DF attack obliterated one of the two strong Soviet hexes and the engineers stormed the summit. Hero of the Soviet Union Captain 11-1-1 was left standing alone with his last platoon of machine gunners. Other remaining Russian units had fled northwards leaving the Germans in possession of the hill.

I'd say that the SPW 251's here really made the difference, providing that extra fire-power in stacks without subjecting to column shifts. I should have pointed out that the SPW's stayed in their starting locations until the GD grenadiers had swept to the West (the schwerpunkt side) and assaulted the ATR there.

Germans: hold 5 summit hexes + 13 Soviet steps = 28 VP Soviets: hold 1 summit hex + 4 German steps = 6 VP