This battle was chosen in order to allow a new player to experience PG, albeit an experienced WW2 gamer. I believed it had enough of most 'things' PG, infantry, armour, OBA etc. The game was played over Skype with Keith Plyman (or Zaarin7 as shown here). The game represents Soviet attempts to break out from a 'Kessel' in one sector near Minsk in 41. On this occassion it was very one-sided, though previous results would suggest otherwise?. A decent learning scenario that allowed a new player to experience the 'travails' of trying to organise a co-ordinated attack under heavy fire. New players also be aware it is a 20 turn game. PG gives time in most cases to lay the preparatory tasks before attacks go in. This game was called after just 7 turns, meaning there were 13 more available. It gets a solid 3 from me.

The Soviets needed to break out from the area and would therefore need to get past the German defenders. The Germans positioned their lines in order to create the best chance of contact with the enemy. In fact, the Germans were quite happy for the enemy armour force on their left to pass them, leaving all the German forces to pick off hapless Soviet infantry, As it happened, the enemy armour would be dealt with by German 37mm AT forces quite well.

These Soviet forces were commanded by the very inexperienced K.Plymanko, a general that had yet to lead a force in the field. Plymanko placed his armoured troops to the west with his infantry forces supported by a lone KV1 platoon on the east side. Responding to this, the Germans placed a StG platoon and four batteries of 37mm AT guns to hold off the armour attack with the rest of the GD Regt to face the Russian foot troops. The Soviet attacked lacked finesse, going in without preparation or guile. Both their armour and foot troops headed straight at the German enemy, seemingly hopeful of bull-dozing their way through. Initial salvoes from German troops seemed more ‘range-finding’ as Soviet casualties proved light in the opening bursts. However, upon closing in to the German lines at 1400 hours, Soviet tanks and men become to become casualties very quickly. Worse still, those that did not become casualties were losing cohesion right in front of the enemy, whilst those Soviet troops following up behind, simply ‘piled’ in with their already disorganized comrades, making rich, thick targets for the invaders to fire into.This was exacerbated by the fact that the Soviet infantry attacked had channelled itself to the east of the main town and left little room for manouvre at all.

The Soviet armour fared no better. A lead T34 platoon was picked off by cross-firing 37mm units whilst the German StGIII made little work of accompanying BT tanks. Soviet tanks were forced to pull back and very quickly too whilst all the time being shot at whilst retreating.

Over the following hour on the German right flank, there followed the most awful carnage against the disorganized and crowded Soviet forces. These were shot at, bombarded and basically torn apart for a whole hour. They could not get forward in any strength. A sole under-strength infantry platoon made it into the German lines, but their cause was hopeless. They would not be able to do it on their own. Having seen enough in just 1 hour and 45 minutes of battle, Plymanko called off the attack and pulled back to his own lines. German casualties were basically nothing; Soviet losses amounted to 19 steps of a mixed bag of men and armour.