The Germans advanced straight up the road and were surprised at the Russian dispositions- nearly all the Russian infantry was dug-in, out in the open either on or straddling the road in front of the woods. Their machine guns were in the larger woods, sighted mostly down the road at the advancing Germans, and their AT guns... well, they weren't anywhere to be seen. Yet.

The Germans had some trouble with their advance- mostly due to misplay on my part- my leaders always seemed to be in the wrong place; I moved a leader independently of his platoon and he succumbed to a 2 in opportunity fire; an entire platoon of engineers was lost to opportunity fire as they retreated after failing a recovery attempt for demoralization; the Russians even taught the Germans a new trick about on-board artillery- they disrupted and demoralized more men with 2 shots at 8 and 1 shot at 12 than by rolling once under 21. However, once the Germans got their act together, the panzers and infantry working together easily began ripping apart the Russian infantry positions in assaults. Russian counterattacks took their toll by knocking out half a panzer platoon, but the Germans ground forward. The Russian AT guns, placed in the smaller forest, waited until the panzers were within range and opened up with even shots to no effect. Needless to say, the AT guns were taken out over the next two turns by the German artillery. The SPW 251s could now run amok with the AT threat removed. The Russians conceded after losing 14 or so steps compared to the German loss of 6.

The Germans definitely have the firepower, the leadership, the artillery support and the time to accomplish the objective of this scenario- get those pesky Russians away from the road. The Russians, who were mostly on the road, just couldn't withstand the German juggernaut out in the open. It's an unbalanced scenario, surely. But it's a scenario in which the Russians need to figure out how to use the woods and their fanaticism to neutralize all those German advantages. In this play, they didn't.