The Goliaths performed exceedingly well in this scenario. Both eliminated entrenchments and units. The Germans soundly defeated the Soviets, Eli inating any real combat power they had. The Soviets were left with a few units that were spread out and didn't form a cohesive, effective, force. But, they did sneak on to a road hex right at the end. German minor victory.

A poor set up for the Russians caused them to fall behind and never recover. I set the Soviet defense with a mines in front of the town and a strong defense forward int he town with flanking fug in positions to prevent and immediate flanking of the town. On the east and west flanks I put a dug in reinforced rifle company top slow the Germans from advancing straight off the board. In the rear I out an entrenched rifle company to try and hold out to prevent the Germans from achieving the road victory conditions. I put the two tank companies forward to interdict the German advance and then fall back into the town and elsewhere where needed. This was the error as the Tigers demolished one tank company in the first action segment of the game and the Stugs beat up the other tank company in that first turn.

The German plan was to attack the town from the west flank by attack the west flank position and the west side of the town by driving a wedge between the two positions. The east flank would see a supporting German attack to pin those Soviet troops down. A fixing force would feint a breaching attack on the town to the front and only breach of the Goliaths worked (which they didn't, they were destroyed by AT fire).

The German plan worked perfectly and just drive right into the Russians hard collapsing the west flank and getting into the west side of the town. As the Germans reduced the town, the main infantry and tanks proceeded to clear the road and exit. Although some Russians held out until almost the end (The Germans achieved all three VCs at 1215 hrs) the Russians were nearly wiped out with German minimal casualties. this was the worst defeat of a force in PG for me to date.

The OB is splendid : 3 X Tigers, 2 X StuGs, offboard artillery, aircrafts and goliaths to reduce the Soviet entrenchments. The victory conditions are tricky : the Germans has to fulfill two of them to win. 1) exit 15 VPS 2) control the main road 3) control Burtyrki. Since the Russians are dug in, they receive hidden units and that's difficult to manage especially for the second victory condition. It's clear that well placed hidden unit might run/drive mad to take back control of at least one road hex in the last turns and there are only 14 turns to go... Russian minefields are on both sides trying to channelize me into the center. I chose the right side + center and went for the kill. The first entrenchment line was easily dealt with and no use for the goliaths that I discarded. The right flank seems to be open and Germans are at the gates of the city. Then chaos again : I have to endure a Logistic shortfall once again. It will be the very last time we will ever use this optional rule again ! It happens all the time and its occurence is far too high. I'll go for assaults only since my Direct fire is handicapped now (-1 col). And it went OK : more and more assaults gave me progressive control of the city while other German units (1 X Tiger, 1 X Stug, infantry) were exiting to achieve the first victory condition. Then my opponent went for Logistic shortfall himself and some time later for Critical Logistic shortfall. Good for me but this rule is to banish for sure. Then, one of my Tigers used extended assault (from two hexes away) against some Russians in the open and destroyed them all under the Tiger tracks ! My opponent picked the idea and, on turn 13, he also used extended assault with a hidden T-34 to get back in the city in just one move and took control of the road with another previously hidden T-34. Too late, Ruski ! All other weapons involving a Tiger using crossfire bonus with the shots of a 50mm AT gun eventually destroyed the sturdy T-34. German win. If you don't play this scenario with hidden units, you'll probably lose most of the fun and it will probably be an easy win for the Germans.

This 14 turn two mapper depicts a German attack against a Soviet held town, the Germans have Tigers, air support, Goliath's and their normal better morale and firepower. The Soviet defenders have entrenchments, mines and time on their side. Would it be enough? The German commander has three objectives, clear the town, clear the road and exit 15 steps. Complete any two and a German victory would ensue. The attack started well, with the Germans opting for a double flanking move with HMG's in the centre as a fire base, the Soviet right flank collapsed fairly quickly but on the left a stubborn ATR platoon held up a company of German INF in assault. The Soviet commander had also placed a backstop on the road, an entrenched HMG and INF with a 1011 leader this position held out against several attacks led by Tiger tank. With the town being very hard to capture the German commander decided to route some unit off the map to at least complete one objective but here is where fate reared ts head and two very quick game turns meant that it was unlikely that even that objective would be gained. On the penultimate turn the Soviet OBDA started to zero on the units trying to leave the board (Double 1 roll). The final attack on the entrenchment resulted in further German losses and a very unlikely major Soviet win was the result. Excellent scenario well balanced IMO, worth a look.

We started this scenario and found out about 5 turns in that the Soviet player hadn't even pulled his AT guns out of the box during set-up. So we started again.

This time, with all the pieces on the board, my enemy really had a surprise in store for the German attackers. Instead of setting up far-back, as he had in the aborted 5 turn scenario mentioned above, he set up right on top of my troops. As in adjacent. (This is due to the Russian setting up first, and the use of the double-blind rules.)

Needless to say, the Germans were a bit surprised, caught in crossfires and had to jump right off into assaults that burned up time and men and material, (a Tiger was killed on the first turn!) but the outcome was inexorable. Too many Germans, too few Russians, and the surviving Tigers made it very difficult for the Russians to hold on to Butyrki.

The Russian had the right idea, though. If he had just set up one hex further back, the German would have had to either fire or move- in the first case, losing precious time, in the second case taking inevitable losses against a dug-in enemy. That's what made this seeming-roll-over scenario a 4.

Kursk: Burning Tigers, scenario Ten: Graveyard of Armor I: Firefight at Butyrki

I have been playing a lot of Eastern Front games over the last year with many on the Kursk topic, as I enjoy that topic, so back into PG Kursk games. This one looks interesting on paper as most of them do but it only has two maps, 14 turns, not too many counters and an interesting mix of units and victory objectives.

Having playing with the Goliath units in some scenarios before I learned to make sure your enemy was suppressed before closing in with the StuGIIIG carrying or towing these Goliath remote controlled, tracked bomb units. This time I was able to deploy both but the first one did little damage rolling a 3 on the die but the second unit rolled a 5 on the die which was very helpful!

As the battle progressed I was doubting I could achieve all three victory objectives as the German player but once the Tiger platoons knocked out all the Soviet T-34 units the Germans open up their game play, with Artillery, air-support and three very much needed Engineer units, the Germans plowed through, only losing 5 Infantry steps and one leader in the whole battle. This scenario kind of reminded me of playing PG scenarios in the Pacific, clearing out entrenchments, mines, dug-in units, AT Guns, and city hexes. I was under pressure right until the end, clearing out Soviet units. The last town hex wasn’t cleared until the second to last turn and the last road hex wasn’t open until the last turn but the Germans achieved all three of their victory conditions for a Major Victory.

A fun scenario to play, I thought I had the prefect Soviet defense setup but I guess not but a few dice rolls differently and maybe the outcome could have been lowered a bit. Maybe I should not have defended the road south and just the town of Butyrki, I don’t know but with so many scenarios to play, I’ll have to let someone else figure it out. Overall, a fun scenario to play.