Kursk: Burning Tigers, Scenario Eight: Storm II: One the Verge

I felt in the mood for an eastern front battle this morning, so this was it. The Soviets have three victory objectives, which are related to the victory levels or not. This is an interesting situation for both sides and the Germans decide to defend setup mostly on the forward hills on map 41 and defend with fewer units in the town of Protasovo in the rear on map 42 but with some key units like the StuGIIIG. The Russian attack across the front with a wide and deep Infantry columns. The Armor sticks mainly to the road in the center but progresses at the same rate as their Infantry to support one another.

Things started to get too dicey on Map 41 within the 40 meter hills, so the Soviets decide to go for the other victory conditions, controlling the Protasovo town hexes and exiting 15 or more steps off the western edge of the map and leave some units still engaged with the Germans in the hill hexes, so they can’t reinforce Protasovo to the west.

After a sharp fight for Protasovo the Soviet finally control it with combined armor and infantry. The Germans huge Elefant tanks reinforcements enter play and make short work of the Soviet armor but when they go to assault combat without any infantry support in Protasove, they suffer two step loses as they get a -2 modifier from the special rules plus the other modifiers. It was close but they cannot dislodge the Soviet Infantry from as town hex in Protasovo and the Soviets exit 17 steps of the western edge of the map achieving two out of three victory objectives for a minor victory.

This was very closely fought scenario and really could have gone either way at any point. It was also a very bloody contest. The Germans lost 22 steps and 4 leaders while the Soviets lost 42 steps and 3 leaders for a rare Soviet victory.