THis game was played over Skype with Alan Sawyer in one session.

On seeing the scenario chosen by Alan, I instantly thought it was going to be tough for the Germans. A Recon force made of lightly armoured vehicles with one StG in support arrayed against T34's. Also, the town central to the game is going to be defended by Soviet Guards. Through all this, the Recon force is asked to possibly assault the town and exit troops.

To be fair, Alan might be being harsh on the scenario. MY plan, having done the maths was to slip past the town to basically ignore the guards. Then take on the RKKA tanks with my StG and PzIII and then allow the speedy motorcycles and armoured-cars to slip off the board along with any of the other troops that made it.

Key to this was to destroy the 76.2mm in Mikhailovka. All the time this battery stood there, it would block the safe passage of the StG and PzIII platoon who were required to engage the expected blocking T34s. The Germans launched all their foot troops as the battle opened and early on German HMG's began to engage the 76.2mm. This had little effect as their fire was poorly directed, but meanwhile, Schutzens were flowing forward eastwards. At 1500 hours,the HMG's received support and were backed up by just arrived 251's and Kubels to stiffen the fire against the Soviet artillery piece. This large group managed to take a number of shots at the artillery position (on the 30col of the DF chart). Each time a 7 was rolled and the whole attack was being held up.

The nail in the coffin was the overly accurate Russian 16col OBA and some opp fire that maanaged to remove steps and my patience finally cracked, conceding the game far too early.

This scenario is not proven as unbalanced as perhaps suggested and I'm sure more plays will produce German wins. I'm wondering whether I need a time out for a month or so from battles after I have completed current engagements. I never concede so early and try to make any loss that comes be as hard as possible for the enemy to inflict. But I have conceded early on in my last 2 games. ..... Battle fatigue ?