Author	J6A (Soviet Union)
Method	VASSAL
Victor	Soviet Union
Participants	unknown
Play Date	2023-05-29
Language	English
Scenario	FitS005

I played this scenario over the course of a few months with my regular PG VASSAL opponent. After the thrashing he had given me in the last couple of scenarios, it was nice to have the advantage here. He set up with his infantry in the town, and his cavalry in the woods to the south. I had a poor start, splitting my forces to partially surround the town, and staggering bringing them in. I had one of the HMGs come in via the south to circle the woods, which was not smart considering they only have 2 MP.

Early on my opponent had some killer die rolls and I took several hits, and I couldn't do much in return, as the starting German morale and excellent officers blunted most damage. Eventually, though, I caught his armored cars in the open and were able to wipe them out in an assault. That counted as 4 step losses and dropped morale from 8/7 to 7/6. Now, in the assaults (and there were a lot of them), I got the 1 column shift for higher morale.

My opponent's cavalry kept a bunch of my troops tied up in the woods, as I could not roll well enough to wear them down quickly. Assaults in the town were bloody, but I had a big numbers advantage, so even though I was losing steps, I could replace them with fresh troops (mostly) and when I did get the occasional step loss on him, he had no backup.

I got the 8th step loss around turn 11, and dropping him to 6/5 morale meant the writing was on the wall. However, turn after turn, I couldn't roll well enough in assault to eliminate the last stubborn defenders. Finally a couple of units demoralized and fled the town, where I was able to mop them up outside. I didn't wipe out his cavalry until turn 16.

The last step in the town held out for several turns, and finally it was eliminated on turn 17, giving the Soviets the victory.

This was an okay scenario. It would probably play very quickly FtF, which is nice. However, it is also a scenario where 1 of 2 things will happen. The first is that the Soviets won't be able to inflict step losses, and the German morale will stay too high for them to take the town, or the second is that they will get the step losses, at which point a German loss is pretty inevitable. Even with 2 modifier leaders, 6/5 morale is pretty terrible. It's not a scenario to which I'd rush back, and it wasn't horrible, either.