Posting #1

Road to Berlin, scenario #60: The Ego Unleashed

I decided to setup another large battle from the Eastern Front Theater. This battle is one of the largest tank battles in the PG series, so I have to play it at least once and since Kursk seems months away from being released, this will hit the spot.

I have noticed that other gamers who have played this, think it favors the Germans, so maybe I'll give them all the Soviet Armor tank leaders, as it is 1945 and maybe I don't want to keep track of it? Not sure yet! Also, one of the gamers who posted, forgot to use his smoke, which would really could effect this scenario, so maybe no adjustment is needed.

Whatever the case, this looks like a blast to play with large armor formations & type variations on both sides. The victory hexes are about control of roads or exiting units or both, casualties are irrelevant, so they will be high! Both sides have a nice mix of infantry and support units as well and the Soviet have a larger off board artillery and aircraft as well and they will need them to challenge a strong German force.

Also, did I mention, that very are so many types of armor in this scenario, it would take forever to list them all!

Posting #2

I thought about bring the Soviets on as one big attack force but there are too many units and I didn’t want to have them bunched up and cut off from being able to make flanking moves. I also will try for the exit strategy for a minor Soviet victory as my main objective and if things are going well, then I might attempt a major Soviet Victory and control one of the East-west roads. I will need to screen my Soviet forces with some serious armor which will most likely be lost but orders are to move forward. Smoke, artillery & air cover should help. I made my Soviet forces a little stronger in the south but so did the Germans as I guess their recon is still doing ok this late in the war.

Presently the Germans have put up a wall in the North but there is a little room to do an end-around. In the South, the Germans need to get their act together pretty fast, as the Soviets have a large flanking force and a screening armor group hitting them dead-on. One thing that I overlooked and it is now helping the Germans, is they have armor efficiency and the Germans are now spreading their forces out to try and contain the Soviet breakout attempt.

At his point, it’s anybodies game!

Posting #3

In the beginning my emotion went back and forth on which side was going to win, first the Germans, then the Soviets, then the Germans again. The German were able to pinch off the flanking moves of the Soviets pretty easily and the long distant shooting ability of their armor smashed most of the Soviet armor before it could be too effective and close with the German armor. The Soviets were only able to exist 17 steps of units, a far cry from the 60 steps needed for a minor victory and their air-force did score a small victory in taking out two steps of the monster Tiger II armored units but their army will have to regroup as most of their armor is smashed and the infantry units paid a huge price in losses trying to make a dash for the exit, loaded in M3 Halftracks and that is where a large portion died. Maybe I should have unloaded them but I still feel this scenario favors the Germans, as their armor out shines the Soviets, their armory efficiency & higher morale wins out over the Soviets Air-cover & Artillery as well.

The End result was a minor German victory. It should have been a Major one but they setup incorrectly in the beginning to block off the earlier Soviets that escaped. I wanted to give this scenario a try for a long time, but I believe it favors the Germans, but it’s worth trying!

I wish I could rank this a 2.5.