Fire In The Steppe: scenario #2: Across the Bug

After playing a game called Across The Bug River by VUCA Simulations and reading about another gamer’s play of the PG scenario on another Blog I went and pulled Fire in the Steppe off the shelf. I had to play this scenario after enjoying the VUCA game so much and I highly recommend that game. Totally different scales but a great subject.

Back to PG, this scenario is three maps and the Soviets must setup divided on the three maps, the Germans setup west of the major Bug River but get three Engineers and one bridge hex to be able to cross the river. The Soviets setup three entrenchments adjacent to the Bridge crossing however but fortunately the Germans have enough off-board artillery to blast those entrenchments open. The German off-board-artillery of 3 x 16 & 2 x 24 are the key to this game. The Soviet get a smaller amount of a 2 x 18 value and both sides get reinforcements with some conditions.

The Germans need to take control of the town hexes on map 3, right across the Bug River to get their Tank-Infantry reinforcements and if they can’t get this achieved there is no point in continuing the scenario. The Germans were able to cross the river in good time in four locations counting the Bridge and control all the town hexes on map within 12 turns to get their reinforcements even with the Soviets pulling units out of map 6 to reinforce the fight on map 3.

After the town was conquered on map 3, the game situation was all about moving the battle to map 1 and control of the town hexes there. The Soviets got their 6 T-26 platoons or 12 steps about the same time and sent them to the area just out-side of the town on map 1, which had a nice force of 76.2mm guns and more Infantry units. The Battle raged and the Germans lost most of the armor there. The Germans even used some of their unloaded trucks and went back to the slower moving wagons and took their load of 37mm anti-tank guns from them, to rush them to map 1, where they were badly needed.

Towards the very end of the scenario, The Germans were in control of the last town hexes on map 1 and with a great help of their off-board artillery. In fact, I thought they had won by achieving this victory condition but when I went and added the step losses with tanks counting double, the Germans had lost 37 steps to the Soviets 63 step losses, thus not achieving the second condition: (Soviet step losses are at least 150% of the German step losses) With tanks counting double per step, the Germans lost this scenario outside or around the town on map #1. All those 76.2mm, 45mm & T-26s took their toll. Soviet Victory!

Not counting double steps, just plain unit step losses:

German losses were: 3 x Trucks, 5 x Leaders, 1 x HMG, 13 x INF, 1 x ENG, 2 x 37mm, 6 x PzIIIG, 2 x PzIVE and 2 x PxII.

Soviet losses were: 8 x Wagons, 11 x Leaders, 9 x HMG, 32 x INF, 6 x 76.2mm, 3 x 45mm, 1 x 82mm and 6 x T-26.

I think this scenario favors the Soviets when you factor in the step losses and time factor but was still fun to play.

Now for the twist: CSW has a folder called Panzer Grenadier Series: Scenario Setups and Strategy (APL) where player post. I took ten players who most recently posted there and assigned them to Leader counters, 5 for each side. Hopefully no one is offended by this, sorry if so. It made gameplay even more fun to see how they did. For the Soviet side: Peter LIoyd: COL, Daniel Rouleau: Lt COL, Pete Pariseau: MAJ, Reinforcements: Tom Lee: Tank Leader T-26 and Joe Garrett: Tank Leader T-26.

For the German side: Philippe Larmande: COL, Peter McCord: Lt COL, Joe Oppenheimer: MAJ, Reinforcements: John Alsen: MAJ and Fred Schwarz: Tank Leader PzIVE.

Now for the results: Soviets: Peter LIoyd was killed in action in street fighting, Daniel Rouleau was killed in action from Artillery Fire, Pete Pariseau was killed in action from Artillery Fire, Joe Garrett was killed in action from Anti-Tank fire and Tom Lee was the only survivor on the Soviet side and his T-26 tank unit which would have to retreat to fight another day.

Now for the results: Germans: Philippe Larmande would have a rough start getting demoralized early while crossing the Bug River but recovered and survived the battle. Peter McCord was killed in action during assault combat, Joe Oppenheimer was killed in action due to direct fire, John Alsen would survive the battle to fight another day but Fred Schwarz was killed in action due to Anti-tank fire lighting up his PzIVE tank.

Interesting, out of 10 guys, only 3 lived in this very bloody battle!