In my play of this scenario I set the Soviets up advancing to occupy the northern town with most of the reduced foot units and keeping most of the slower-moving clunker tanks in reserve and hidden from sight. Most of the full strength Soviet INF amd HMG units were placed in or near the central-eastern wooded area. The 82mm mortars and 76.2mm artillery batteries were placed in the fringes of the north-eastren woods as they had to spot for themselves per SSR#3, without leaders. The T-34As were the only tanks placed south of the river. The Germans advanced in four groups; a large force of foot units in the fields to attack the defenders in the woods; the remainder of foot units transported to the north-eastern woods as reserves to support tanks and the panzers supported by armored cars going at the T-34As in two flanks.

The weaker and reduced Soviet units quickly occupied the northern-most town or dug-in around it along with most of the 45mm AT guns as the last line of defense. The strategy was simple, to delay any German river crossing by the bridge and basically let them impale themselves trying to weed out the full strength foot units from the central-east woods. The German victory conditions are stark: clear both maps 1 and 3 of all Soviet units and take no more than 27 step losses, a very tall order. Instead of playing for a draw I did what I could with the Germans but still exercised some degree of caution. The battle in the woods quickly became bogged down but ultimately in favor of the Soviet defenders. Whether trading direct fire or engaging in assaults step losses there were about 2 German for every Soviet one. The first armored engagement with the T-34As went surprisingly well for the outclassed, Czech-built Pz35t and 38ts as they were able to outmanuever them due to SSR#5, where soviet tanks only have a 50% chance of being able to move with a 1-3/D6 roll. Crossfire was easily set-up and used against the T-34As and once a few steps were eliminated from AT fire German infantry were able to overrun the survivors in assaults. Of course while this was going on KV-1s eventually moved up closer paired with Bt-7s across the bridge while the one platoon of KV-2s stayed on the ther side of the river as an auxillary; either mowing down advancing foot units with it's 18-9 direct fire value or taking AT shots at panzers that got too close to the bridge. The T-26s would still wait as a third and final reserve. Eventually half of the German tanks would be eliminated but overall, especially with infantry assisting in assaults the Soviets would lose over twice as many tanks. By 14:45/turn 20, the Soviets had won by eliminating over 27 steps of German units but the battle was just too intense to stop there and the remainder of the scenario was finished off. I simply changed my own personal objectives for the Germans. Now the goal was to see how far I could push them and get them across the river and then what could be done to the town defenses.

Before the end of the battle the bridge was traversed but not without losses. Soviet HMGs within the town were incredibly efficient with opportunity fire, getting "snake eyes" back to back on the 16 column virtually vaporizing 3 steps of advancing INF leaving a lone German SGT in their absence. Then, a reduced KV-2, recovered back to good order from within the woods and took out some Pz38ts that had just crossed over but the Germans made it to the outskirts of the town. German HMG fire was able to eliminate some of the Soviet HMGS there and cause others to flee the area. However this expeditionary force was too small to do anything more than harass the units occupying the town as the other half of the German foot units were still slugging it out in the forest further south and time was up wth the sun about to set.

Overall, this was a very intense, action-packed scenario but the odds were stacked against the Germans from the beginning. There are just too many Soviets to wipe out and too little time. Even if the scenario had gone on longer than 28 turns I don't think the Germans could of pulled it off with the amount of forces remaining. There were still Soviet KV-1s and T-26s, though reduced, recovering back to disrupted and good order status in the town with supporting foot units along with 3 45mm AT guns left dug-in. I think that with the Soviets I did well by only allowing their armored units to appear in three waves or groups, ultimately delaying and wearing down the main German advance instead of putting them all out in plain sight to start. With the Germans I could of managed a draw by being more cautious but then they would of never of made across the river or even near the northern town. So I give this a strong "3" despite the harsh German victory conditions. It was one hell of a knuckle-grinder and even though the Germans ultimately lost the battle they still took a huge chunk out of the Soviet's defenses eliminating almost twice as many enemy steps compared to their own.

German losses: 13 steps INF, 2 HMG, 4 SdKfz222, 4 P204f, 4 Pz35t, 5 Pz38t, 1 SPW251 and 1 truck.

Soviet losses: LT(7-0-0), 11 steps INF, 1 HMG, 3 x 82mm, 2 x 45mm, 4 x 76.2mm, 5 Ba10m, 6 Bt-7, 7 T-26, 8 T-34A, 4 KV-1 and 2 KV-2.

So far, after 15 scenarios played both solo and shared from 'Eastern Front' the win/loss results between the Axis and Soviet Union are at a tie from an overall campaign perspective and only 97 scenarios left to go!