This scenario was bloody, brutal and hard fought by both sides. 170 steps were lost between the Germans and Russians by the end of the game. German losses (75 steps) were mostly tanks- including THREE entire tiger platoons; Russian losses (95 steps) were mostly infantry and ATR, with a few guns and tanks for variety.

The Russian initial set-up was especially devious- he concentrated nearly all of his men and materiel on the eastern boards, leaving only a token defense in the west. And, as the Germans, I had broken my command into four large battle groups: one to take the western trail, one to work its way past the fields in the west, one to take the small town in the south, and one to crawl along the eastern edge. Trouble was already brewing- for nearly half the game about half of my forces were going to be fighting 95% of his strength on the eastern boards. Furthermore, he set up his minefields to block my access to the fields. The mines were deployed in wedges that pointed to the south, and the open end of each wedge was anchored by entrenchments. I couldn't hide my SPWs out of sight of his guns and tanks in the eastern sector and lost nine or ten of them by game's end.

To my surprise- and utter horror- the Russians had hidden most of their forces INSIDE these wedges in the fields! Each time I made a little gain against one of the entrenchments, new forces were fed into them. I made the idiotic decision to try to get around the sides of the wedges, even with my armor. Crossfire from his T-34s and other guns ripped my tanks to shreds as they tried to force their way into these well protected wedges. I eventually worked the center battle group into the big town around turn 12, and the Russians abandoned it- but not without sending three of their own tank platoons down to the four-hex town that I assumed was mine! I only managed to win because on the final turn I cleared the sparsely defended trail.

I learned a lot from this one. First- I was an idiot to be so afraid of the mines- I had engineers after all. But I never used them to scout the strength of the minefields, and if I had I would have discovered where he was hiding most of his men. Second, a disrupted tank is almost as useless as a demoralized tank. It can't fire to any useful effect, and when you are stupid enough to get yourself into a crossfire situation, you can't recover them- you have to move that one hex- if you can. Third, I left the middle open! I had no AT assets to stop his tanks from leaving the big town and re-taking the small town- which I had assumed was behind my lines!