This was played solo over two sessions. A German force (mainly infantry with SPG support) has to thrust across 3 boards and take the large town on board 2. VPs are gained for taking town hexes clearing the road and inflicting step losses on the enemy. The Germans have good morale, strong OBA and AFV support including STUGs and A/Cars. The Soviets are dug in have some AFV support including one KV1 platoon. Set up was a rear slope defense or in this a rear wood defense with the intention to fall back to the town while delaying the Nazi defense. I have titled this a classic scenario because of the way it played is how so many of these eastern front scenarios play out, this is not meant as a moan, but as an observation. The scenario can be divided into three phases. Phase 1 The German army sweeps onto the board, pushing through any opposition easily and generally taking some minor losses, all is going well for the Huns, the opposing player grins and takes it and adjusts his lines best he can. Phase 2 The attack tends to falter a little as the defense regroups and the Germans hit the main line of resistance. The Germans regroup and use HMG fire groups and artillery to wear down the defenses. Phase 3 The endgame, both sides are looking at the game board adding up VPs and trying to figure when to launch a final assault or counterattack, in this game the Germans looked like coming up just short however the armoured cars made a flanking march and while the main force kept the Soviet defenders pinned entered the rear of the town and grabbed vital VPs giving the German side victory. The vaunted KV1 fired only once in the game and missed! None of the German AFV's would move any where near it. I enjoyed this one even though it played out as I sort of expected, it was closer than I thought it would be at the end. Mr Perryman does do exceedingly good scenarios

I read another review on this scenario and it looked interesting so I drove in and gave it a try. The unit types and victory conditions seemed to hit the mark as well and I love scenarios where losing a leader counter hurts and in the special rules, if the Soviet lose a leader it counts towards initiative levels going down, which could be easily missed, as it not a normal rule.

My battle started with the Germans initial forces coming on from the south and instead of the Soviets just waiting back on the northern map 2 in the larger city of Uritsk, they had an ambush force in the forest in the middle and some of the smaller towns and fields, which consist of the Big KV-1 and a smaller T-60 tank platoon, also some AT guns, a few Infantry and Machine gun units. Farther back on board 2 on the larger hill the Soviets also had a couple of batteries of 76.2 mm guns and a 120mm mortar to support the forward units. Then the majority of the Infantry type units and support weapons and two more T-60 tank platoons defended the city of Uritsk as you might suspect.

The Germans came on the map and tried to avoid the forest but the KV-1 and one T-60 tanks platoons came charging out. The Germans lost two steps of StugIIIB and one step of PzJrI before the Soviets later lost the KV-1 and one T-60 platoons pushing their luck too much with the other StugIIIB and a German 50mm AT gun getting some nice cross fire bonus but that KV-1 was a work horse up until that point and the Russian on board and off board artillery started to put a small dent In the German Infantry but finally the German larger off board artillery suppressed the Russian 76.2 mm Guns long enough for the Germans to assault those dug-in units on the hill.

At this point the Germans reinforcement came on the map, just in time to setup and start the second phase of the offense, to eliminate the Soviet units in the smaller towns and to finally assault the larger city of Uritsk ,as now they had halftracks, engineers, armored cars and more Infantry and the Soviets were now reduced to defending but still with a little bite left.

In the final phase, the Germans controlled ¾ of Urtisk before I called the battle at this point, as the Germans also had a Major victory at this point with control of more town/city hexes and more enemy units eliminated with no real hope of the Soviets changing the outcome.

I did find this as an enjoyable scenario however and I think if I would have tried a different strategy with the Soviets, they could have possibly won this. Maybe concentrate all the forces in a forward positions on map 15 and not pull back to map 2 until they are really hurting or the German reinforcement arrive or group them all on map 2 to begin with and just defend there. Well, next time!

The Russians put up a defensive line on board 15, with the forest in the middle of the defensive works. The Germans made some early mistakes and it cost them some time at the beginning of the fight. The Germans dissipated their attack and they left their troops too long in the trucks. An attack on either side of the forest (but not both) would have been better. (???) The leaving of the troops in their conveyances got them shot up pretty badly. Around 1000-1030, both sides of the forest broke and a deliberate retreat toward Uritsk began covered by the KV-1 unit. Here is where the Russian Commander made his first error, he left a couple of stacks in the forest and could not get them out in time to help with the defense of Uritsk. After some time reconfiguring the German forces for the assault on the town. The assault began around two hours before the end of the scenario and edged into town enough for the win.