With a few days off to spare thought I'd tackle this 30 turn mini monster. Plenty of special rules regarding mud, reinforcements, artillery and river crossings.

Polish set up a defensive line along the towns and forests a km, south of the river. Two small reserves were deployed in the town to the south east (with 25pdrs) and the forests in the mid west.

The first hour saw a few Polish spotters advance into the town on the river. The night was bright allowing for around 400m of visibility. The 25 pdrs bombarded what they could in relative safety until the spotters' radios finally went silent.

All soviet bridges and crossing points were eventually deployed in the North East, mainly in or around the river town. As soviet units began crossing, the Polish forces in the west began loading up and driving cross country to reinforce the North eastern town, a km south of the now forming soviet bridgehead.

With enough forces gathered the Russians bypassed the opposing town and attempted to oust the Poles in the woods beyond, unfortunately for them preliminary bombardments had little effect and 3 assaults were easily repulsed.

Residual polish forces were dealt with along the river and a fresh breakout was attempted to the east. Four soviet armoured platoons swung around the Eastern woods and headed straight for the town with the 25pdrs.

More troops poured across the river but lack of cohesion and broken units fleeing from the earlier failed assaults blocked their path. The kommissars had their work cut out for them before sunrise.

Polish reinforcements were delayed by around half an hour and the soviet reinforcements tried to deploy as quickly as possible. Engineers moved west along the river trying to alleviate the urban squeeze further east.

The bulk of the Russian guns and mortars deployed on the hill overlooking the river. Meanwhile the vanguard armoured platoons continued to race towards the south eastern town.

Around 7 o'clock M3s filled with Polish troops began making their way north, travelling through the southern woods, allowing the vast number of Pershings to use the limited roads.

The opposing armour met around 8 around 4km behind the Polish frontline. Tanks lit up but the Pershings had the numbers. Within the hour all soviet tanks south of the river were destroyed or withdrawing. The Poles pushed up to form a second defensive line to the east and dug in around 2 km south of the frontline.

With the threat now gone, stuarts and chaffees raced to reinforce the urban assaults taking place to the north.

The Soviets brought up their armoured reserves and attempted to move it west, unfortunately they all got caught up in various assaults by optimistic Polish AT units. Damage was limited, but the Soviet manoeuvres stalled.

The Russians finally took the Eastern most woods around 9 and tried desparately to kick the heavily entrenched Poles from the adjacent town. They had limited success but with open ground ahead covered by dug in Polish armour and heavy guns they had nowhere to go!

By 10 it was all over for the Russians, Polish tanks picked off trucks and soviet troops lost most of their leaders and cohesion in the ensuing chaos. All but the Riverside town were still in Polish control and what Soviets had advanced never reached further than 2km from their exit objective.

Soviet losses had been excessive without any key objectives being taken. Other than the bridgehead and town Russia had little to show for their losses that had exceeded 45 steps compared to only 20 or so polish. Worse was the loss of leadership for the Soviet forces with many of its leaders either demoralised or dead.

All in all the game took around 9 hours over 2 days.

In this particular game assaults seemed the order of the day. Being so dark off board artillery was limited and the nature of the terrain meant that illumination was also underwhelming in effect. Much was decided by the failed assaults early on that blocked the oncoming soviet forces and the arrival of the apparently superior Pershings that sealed the Russians fate.