When I counted out the Russian pieces, I was sure that the Germans would get trounced. So I set up the Germans in a line that was mostly parallel to the board edge that the Russians would be entering; my only concession to German man-power shortages was anchoring my left flank way to the rear in the four hex town along the trail. The trail itself was not blocked, but Marders and AT guns were set well back to achieve crossfire on advancing tanks.

During the first two turns of the Russian advance, I targeted my off-board and on-board artillery on his machine guns or on any hex that contained two of his infantry. I didn't kill anybody, but most of his infantry and SMGs were advancing without the firepower support of the HMGs. On the third turn my airplane knocked out two half-platoons of T34s.

By the fifth turn, the Russians had advanced up to my positions in the fields, but their assaults were costly, and the Germans were holding their own. By turn eight, the Russians had brought most of their tanks and vehicles onto the board, and they had taken the town way back along the trail, but the German reinforcements appeared the next turn, and were set to advance on the town from the two fields on either side of it. The Russians had committed most of their armor on their right flank along the trail, and thus they were ill-positioned to fight the Germans (since the Germans weren't there!). The Russians retired from the field after the ninth turn- their units were too dispersed/disrupted/demoralized to regain coherence in time to make a difference.

The morale advantage really made itself felt in this scenario. With artillery support, the average Kaempfgruppe of three German platoons was easily able to repulse 8 or 10 Russian infantry/SMG platoons. Had the Russians coordinated their tanks and infantry better, the outcome would have been very different.