This scenario was played solo in two short sessions. VC are simple the Italians must capture the title town and not lose 8 steps in the process, failure will mean a Soviet victory. IMHO the Soviet player must concentrate his defense solely on the town, perhaps putting one sacrificial unit on Board 5 as a road block and a second entrenched road block on Board 5 just to stop the Axis forces steaming up the road. The two 82mm MTR's are the most potent weapon in the Red Army's arsenal in this scenario, I placed them in the woods, meaning the Italian commander would have to divert units away from the main point of attack to deal with them. The Italian's should have plenty of time in this scenario (24 turns) to cross 1 1/2 boards and take the town. They outnumber the Soviet's but the Italian forces come in on two waves, and have no OBDA and what, artillery they have will not arrive till 90 mins after the start of the battle. The Italin plan was to flank the first road block, surround the town, wait for the reinforcements and squeeze the trap shut on the hapless Russians. The first few turns saw the Italian moving swiftly past the road block and taking positions around the second road block, however the Soviet mortars and OBDA (strength 10) disrupted several units and even demoralized the Italian commander (Col1011). This caused some consternation to the attacking forces and a company was in the end detached to deal with those pesky mortars. With the arrival of the Italian reinforcements the attack recommenced but this is where the fragile morale came in, as Soviet OF while not being devastating cause numerous disruptions and a couple of demoralization's including the Italian commander again. This meant that the Italian attack was never properly coordinated and although a foothold was gained in Petrikova it was a very tenuous one at best. The final turns saw some desperate Italian assaults and Russian counter attacks in the town, Soviet losses were high (12 steps to the Italians 6 steps) but by game end only half the town had been taken by the Italians. **Good exciting scenario, played through to the end as it only obvious by GT22 that the Soviet forces would hang on. By then there were 7 Italian units either disrupted or demoralized and more than three hexes away from the action, who were in effect out of the game, and the remaining units were not strong enough to force the issue. **