This battle was played on Skype with Joe Oppenheimer over 3 sessions. I was attracted to this due to a report I had read on CSW from another PG player and thus looked forward to it. It offers a lot of different scenario specific rules, such as Militia, tanks coming off the assembly line and requires the Germans to obtain at least 3 out of the 4 VC conditions in order to win. Something to look forward.

The Situation And Plans

The DNO, backed by some professional artillery soldiers deployed in two main areas. Their forward position was the town of Pulkovo itself, armed with HMG units with some support from AT guns situated close by, a platoon of weak T60’s and some mined and entrenched areas. The main road was also mined intermittently along its course leading up to the heights of Pulkovo itself. On this large raised hill area, the main Soviet force deployed. Many ordnance pieces, dug-in infantrymen and some KV platoons. Also promised were more KV’s from the factory. For the Germans part, they interpreted the set up to be too weak on each of its flanks. The Soviet deployment was very centralized, and they therefore determined that the way forward was a step-by-step advance in this order. Take the town, inflict heavy losses as the advance went on and then flank the enemy to continue the push further and beyond towards Leningrad. The road, well, that was not so necessary to capture just yet.

The Attack On Pulkovo Town

As planned, the initial wave of German troops struck out at Pulkovo and this was at 1000 hours. German OBA took out some Soviet Mountain batteries and an HMG platoon though the troops of the 1at Panzer Division got a rude surprise when the militiamen’s AT support knocked out a couple of PzIV’s and some APC’s early on. This sent the initial tankers in the attack reeling back towards some farmsteads for cover. But this was a blip. The rest of the force pressed on at Pulkovo, and the brittle moraled Soviet Militia found it hard to stand up to sustained OBA and concentrated MG fire from supporting APC’s. This left German infantry and numerous PzIII’s to flood Pulkovo and enter street fighting with the enemy. After an hour of attack, the Militia had stood up surprisingly well overall, but were now on their last demoralized legs having sustained many casualties in and around Pulkovo. Just after 1100 hours, defence around Pulkovo had finally crumbled with the loss of around 200 soldiers, 3 batteries of guns and the platoon of T60’s. German losses to this point were around 50 infantrymen and the aforementioned 2 PzIV’s and APC’s.

Pressing On

With the town pocketed and now with reinforcements arriving, the Germans were able to eye their next objective. Surveying the enemy positions, they decided they would throw out some feints to the centre and left flank and then swing the majority of their force from the centre over to the right in a bid to exit past the Soviet defence. The Russians meantime had muscled up the defence of the road with troops digging in and their ordnance constantly bombarding the German efforts. KV tanks were also arriving to the help of the defenders straight from the factory lines. From the perimeter of Pulkovo, German HMG support backed by APC’s laid down a swarth of lead to the front of the advancing infantry in a bid to suppress and obliterate anything to their front. This had quite some success and helped those infantrymen in their task. Meanwhile, the mass of Panzers in the force, around 24 of them swung right, supported by some platoons of infantry and ordnance in their flanking attempt. Meanwhile, to the centre and left, German infantry struggled forward against severe shelling in their effort to tie Soviet troops down there.

Battle Comes To An End

The cumbersome KV’s, although monsters, once deployed struggled to push over to the flanks in any numbers. This made for the main German attack on the right flank be able to advance pretty much unmolested. The same could not be said for the feint attacks. These were being disrupted liberally, though some of the men did make it to the heights and engage the enemy in close assaults. But it was on the right that the battle would be decided, and here, the German Panzers rushed passed the enemy as their infantry advanced to and then engage the small amount of Soviet infantry and a troublesome battery of 107’s there.

By 1315 hours, the Germans had achieved enough for a victory. Admittedly, the road still was blocked though I guess this would be dealt with later. In the meantime, Panzers were streaming forward, Pulkovo had been invested and casualties inflicted on the enemy. Total casualties sustained came to 126 German infantrymen, 4 tanks and a handful of 251’s (10 step equivalents), Soviet losses were unsurprisingly higher given most of their men were militia, 372 soldiers including 20 guns and 4 tanks.(22 step equivalents)

The scenario was interesting as the German in that it requires some planning ahead of time as to how the best way to tackle the VC's should be taken. There are only 20 turns, which leaves minimum time to be too methodical and forces some aggression where at other times, patience may be the best policy. For the Soviet, though I'd wait for Joe's summary, I guess their headache is how to defend the whole front with so many poor-moraled militia. Tough quandry ! I also enjoyed hooking up with Joe himself and as well as his friendly demeanour, I also learnt what Pistrame (spelling) was as opposed to salami which I DO know :-)

This gets a 3 from me. Another where I'd like to give 3.5 but thats not available. It had enough quirky things going on to take the 4 points but at the same time, didn't quite reach the 'heights' (excuse the pun on the scenario name) in itself to attain the 4 pointer