This battle was played over three ftf sessions with long term adversary, Wayne Baumber. A German force about the third of the size of the Soviets in foot troops, but with only a slightly inferior number of tanks are asked to defend a front and hold back the Soviet attack. The Soviets must break through German lines and exit units for points and the Germans gain 30pts if less than 30 Soviet steps exit. Both sides get a VP for eliminating enemy steps. The onus is on the Soviets to drive the pace of the game so as to exit their required amount of steps.

As the German, my main concerns were to get a good defensive line by driving the men along the most northerly east-west road to deploy into holding positions. Also, to find a way that my mix of PzIII G's and weaker F's might stand up to the terror of the mighty T34's (five of the eighteen Red tank platoons are T34's. These always give me a headache in 1941 games when only armed with PzIII's).

The Soviets enter from the south at 0700 hours and tank borne SMG plns surge forward along with what seems a mass of other infantry and HMG's. The Germans at this stage as stated are frantically trying to deploy along the highway to the background sound of gruffly barked out German orders and shouts of enemy spotted. For 2 hours (8 turns), the Soviets press forward, losing a few steps to OBA. The German MTC company (3 plns) pushes ahead to disrupt the Soviet centre of advance and they immediately draw the enemy attention via OBA and lose a step. The German Panzer forces get themselves lined up and in the advantageous position to fire their shells first at the T34 Vanguard whilst the Soviets cannily move their BT tanks through wooded areas covered by the 27 ton T34 beasts.

The air fills with German 50mm shells of varying velocity ripping through the air towards their target. With a gulp, the German tankers see their shells either miss, or perhaps worse still, glance harmlessly off the T34 armour. The response is robust, 2 steps of PzIII's are ripped apart and a tense tank battle within a battle follows for two hours. At the end of the this mini-battle punctuated by move, counter-move and fire when able, just 1 T34 step has become a casualty compared to 7 PzIII steps. It wasn't and shouldn't have been so skewed towards the Soviets, but its just the way it went that morning. With the damage done, the PzIII's pulled back to re-group and find other parts they could more positively affect to the Germans favour. Meanwhile, toward the Soviet line upon a small hillock there, the German MTC's, although being slowly reduced and eliminated have caused casualties and a loss of cohesion in an impressive part of the Soviet infantry line. Though not necessarily appreciated at the time, it seems they ate into Soviet time and perhaps Soviet ability to function properly or cohesively.

Now the German infantry and HMG teams would have to find a way to stall the enemy advance that Wayne was throwing relentlessly onwards. With some PzIII's and 50mm AT guns positioned behind or to the flanks of the foot troops hoping to pick of BT5 & BT7 targets, the German infantry forces fought a viscious no-quarter defence against advancing Soviet troops. The Red Army men received mortar and OBA fire, HMG fire, infantry fire and concentrated groups of 'hanomag' fire (Sk251's). Slaughter, disruption and demoralisation became the norm. Over 3.5 hours (14 turns), all German HMG's died in their positions and some 25-30 steps of Soviet infantry forces were eliminated. These numbers helped balance up the lop-sided tank battle casualties the Germans were haemorraging which had reached a 6 v 17 exchange rate in the Soviet favour. All but one of the Soviet tank losses were BT's as they were now either making a push north or getting themselves engaged in the combat.

By 1145 hours, the German infantry line positioned in the north-east was having to bend and take the strain of the final desperate Soviet attack. The Russian tank forces, now practically in charge of the field were making a last assault against the line. But time was against them, and with the Germans retiring each time the enemy advanced, time was eaten for space. At 1215 hours (turn 22 of 24), the battle was finally declared a German win as there was no way possible the Soviets had time to puncture the line and burst out to the north edge. But they had ended just 6 or 7 hexes short.

Amazingly, with the Germans getting a 30pt bonus for allowing less than 30 steps exit. They notched up a 'Major' victory in game terms. This hides the fact of how close the game was as just one leak would have opened the flood-gates to a Soviet exodus..... perhaps 4 more turns or a 28 turn game instead of a 24 turn game. The final points tally was German 77pts, Soviet 48pts. Also, it is worth noting that right up to turn 19 I still felt that as the German, I was going to lose the battle. It was that fraught and close and as Wayne said in his report, he made a very robust advance and as the opponent on the receiving end, handled his T34's excellently.

Casualties for the 18th Pz.Div were horrendous compared to normal German/Soviet exchange rates in previous games. Step-losses for them were 6 Foot, 6 Motor-cycle, 18 AFV, 1 Ordnance, 1 APC, 1 Leader (48 step-equivalents). The Soviet losses were 33 Foot, 8 AFV, 3 Ordnance, 6 Leaders (47 step-equivalents). This was a very very exciting scenario that I believe will end up showing can be very balanced over numerous plays. For example, though my tanks on the day didn't get many succesful hits on Russkie armour, on other days it could well do so. Russian infantry on the other hand might not absorb as many casualties as they did in this one. My rating is a '4'. It ain't gonna be shown as one of the best ever, but perhaps misses that accolade by just a smidgen. I look forward to seeing this played again as a head to head game to see how future opponents fare and also their opinions. To Mike Perryman .... good scenario mate !