This game was indicative of many of the battles of Kursk in that the Germans gained tactical superiority over the battlefield. The Germans had many successes at Kursk on a tactical level, but could never gain the upper hand strategically due to attacking with insufficient forces to be able to,penetrate the Kursk defenses to gain operational freedom.

Turn 1-4. The Germans pushed forward to spot Soviet positions to their front and left for direct fire and bombardment.

Turn 4-14. The Germans push in to the town. The Soviets counterattack with armor to the right of, and from behind the town. The Soviets in the town are eliminated and the on turn 11 Soviet reinforcements enter straight in to the center of the German attack. The Soviets are annihlated.

Turn.13-16. The Soviets throw all of their remaining armor in to the German left flank. The Germans take losses, but the Soviet armor is eliminated.

Turn 17-20. The soviets try to gain some hits with arty and direct fire, but it is insignificant. The Germans exit en masse.

The Germans, having pushed through map 42, chose to bypass the ridge with 20 and 40 meter hills entirely. The Soviets had their strongest infantry/artillery defenses here. Bypassing those, the Germans gained in not losing more units fighting and exiting, making up for the points not gained in taking the hill hexes.

Kursk: Burning Tigers, scenario # 38: Forgotten Success VIII: Bad Moon on the Rise

This scenario is really large even for a PG scenario but it has a lot of what you want in a Kursk battle. The Soviets have a lot of map area to defend, all the town hexes, 40mm hill hexes and prevent the German units from exiting off the north edge of the map which get various points depending on the type of units to exit. Also both sides get various points depending on the unit for eliminated steps.

The Germans roll in from the south and decide to take all the town hexes on both southern maps, which after some heavy fight, they achieved that goal with their massive forces. Then they decide instead of taking more loses to head down the middle of the four maps, taking out any Soviet units defending there, opening a corridor in the center to exit units off the northern edge of the maps, avoiding the town hexes on map 42 and many of the 40mm hills hexes on map 41. The German reinforcements enter on turn 6 and the Soviet reinforcements entered on turn 10. The Soviets counter-attacked with their reinforcement losing most of their armor while eliminating just a few steps of German armor in the counter-attack. The German many varieties of halftrack armor, are so weak and always need protection or to stay out of harm’s way, which isn’t easy.

By turn 17 or 18, I pulled the plug on this scenario, as it as was a Major German Victory already, something like 164 points to 75 points. The Soviets just have to much ground to protect and the Germans can pick and choose what objectives to go after. Still fun to play solitaire, as this is a long one and seemed to favor the Germans.