This was played face to face with Wayne Baumber. The game had a few things that attracted me to it. Using a desert map for the steppes, a frozen lake, Italians enclosed in defences against a large amount of Soviets and a preparatory bombardment.

Things Go As The Italians Planned

At 8am the Soviet attack opened with a 90 minute preparatory bombardment of believed Italian held positions. Unfortuantely, for the Soviets, the hills bombarded were occupied by no Italians whatsoever and should have been aimed further eastwards. Regardless, the Soviet 172nd Rifle Division began its advance across the frozen Don River and towards the the entrenched positions of the Italian 90th regiment. These Italians occupied a hill line, protected on its west flank by minefields and plenty of barbed wire. By 1015am, the Russians were nearing their target, with an attempt to sweep round the front of the Italians and force an entry on their western flank. The Soviets absorbed some casualties from Italian artillery as well as some losses by forcing some of their own men through the minefields to find a clearway (or make one?). This sad task was carried out by the Penal troops.

By 1115am, the outer perimeter of the fortified Italian line had been reached. Some 220 Russians had become casualties thus far including a senior officer against negligible Italian loss. The Soviet leader was a Major, and his loss stunned the attack into a standstill for 20 minutes or so whilst a new chain of command was realised.

1066 Revisited

But just before noon, the Italians made a very serious tactical error. An error which brought thoughts of King Harolds Saxons at Hastings. Seeing the numerous Soviet troops sweeping round on the west flank, the Italian commander sent out 2 coys. of infantry from their high entrenched positions to try and hold the enemy off at the wire entanglements. As a result, this small task force found itself the subject of Russian artillery concentration and small-arms fire, inflicting 50 casualties in very short order. Soon after this, these very same Italians were being swamped by the enemy on all sides as the Soviet forces began to burst through the wired defence line. The Italians at this location now settled on a fighting withdrawal in order to extricate themselves back to the higher ground.

Balance Regained ?

The withdrawal appeared to have worked ? But with Soviet infantry and MG's close on their tail, there was little time to organise a cohesive defence against such enemy numbers. Italian casualties had begun to mount by now, with 190 soldiers lost by 1245pm. Around the same time, the Russians were busying themselves probing the northern front of the Italian entrenchments too. Manoeuvre became very difficult for the defending Italians as all their artillery and mortars were also stuck on this high ground.

Overrun

At 1.30pm, the final Soviet assault went in from all sides of the hill. Italians were cut down in some numbers in a confused and mad close quarters battle between infantrymen. In the end, with 261 casualties, the Italians had to concede defeat, and would, as a result concede this high-ground overlooking the Don. But it had been very close. Unknown to the Italians, fifteen minutes more and the Soviet commander would have called off the attack. Soviet losses ran to 391 men, but the hills over this part of the Don had been captured.

It was this battle that taught me that forever more, ruthlessness is all that counts. The early stages had been a walk in the park for the Italians and confronted with an opponent whining about his lot, I sportingly sent out the counter-attack force to liven up the situation. Little did I realise this would be my undoing. The loss was made worse by looking at Wayne, comparing his earlier misery to a now smug and laughing posture. NEVER AGAIN would this happen. Sportsmanship was dead ! (Well this is the East Front after all). A good 4 rating as it was a very interesting situation that provided a lot more than the average entertainment