It was incredible how this battle panned out, almost like pages from a book turning themselves. The German victory conditions were pretty much all or nothing: seize control of all five town hexes and lose no more than 11 steps of units up against a sizable Soviet force to secure a minor victory and the same conditions with no more than 5 steps lost for a major win. The Soviets placed 45mm AT guns between the northern woods and central fields to deter use of the east-west road in order to slow the German advance with a few supporting units of infantry while the rest of the force deployed in Kamienka with some units digging-in on the outskirts of the town, which seemed logical enough. The advancing elements of the IRGD likewise avoided use of the road and dismounted most of their units right away taking the slower approach through the fields to reach the town. Right away the main concern for the Germans was that time would slip away and that they may get held up and disorganized before being able to mount a full urban assault. So whatever the case the Germans had to keep forces moving on even if that meant leaving a few disrupted or demoralized units behind.

Soviet resistance in the fields was crushed with relative ease and without much loss of time while the units poised in the woods were avoided and soon Kamienka was in sight. Those Soviet units in the woods loaded up the 45mm gun and relocated it while their Captain led a futile charge from the north with the infantry. Those units were easily brushed away, demoralized and sent fleeing back to the woods while the last AT gun was easily demolished from German OBA. Now there was just the town to take. The Germans advance in two groups; one from the north reinforced with the 2 platoons of StugIIIBs and the larger assault group from the west, effectively encircling the town. All the while I kept on expecting the Germans to take severe losses from concentrated opportunity fire and/or Soviet OBA; a few German infantry platoons were demoralized and sent fleeing but the much needed engineers and HMG units were kept in good order for the urban assault. Rallying and keeping German units in good order wasn't much of an issue as two of the German leaders had morale modifiers of 2. The Soviets had so many opportunities to blast away thier attackers with opportunity fire on the 16 or sometimes 22 column of the DF table but could not generate any X results or even force compound demoralizations for German losses. So despite a few units having to rally most of the IRGD were easily able to weaken and storm the town's defenses and once the assaults began with the combination of ENG units and a higher overall morale there was no chance of the Soviets holding out for too long, just a distant hope that one unit would be able to hold out long enough to force a draw. Virtually nothing was working in the Soviets favor on this day though one of the StugIIIBs was demoralized from some infantry small-arms fire advancing towards the town, which must of been briefly, morally uplifting. Soon enough, block by block, town hexes fell under German control while at least 6 steps of Soviet units were simply evicted and sent fleeing to be trapped in the southeast corner of the map with nowhere to run. By 15:00/turn 17, all of Kamienka was in German control with no real chance of a Soviet counterattack. Units that were trapped in the corner were easily picked off. There was one futile effort from an isolated platoon of Soviet INF led by a fanatical Captain which emerged rallied from the northern woods. The platoon actually survived initial opportunity fire attempting to weasel it's way into a vacant town hex but had to stop two hexes away after it's movement was completed. Of course the vacant town was immediately occupied by German units while mortar fire blasted the platoon demoralizing it and it's leader but it was all the Soviets could do at that point as pathetic as the attempt was. So far, up until 15:15/turn 18 there had not been one single German step lost at all and was contemplating a perfect, major German win when a random event in favor of the Soviets intervened, giving them one air-strike. A Pe-2 was drawn with a 16 DF rating and it not only hit it's target, a reduced and demoralized German INF unit, but eliminated it for the only German loss during the battle. In kind, the Germans ultimately decided it was not going to leave Soviet units or leaders on the map. The last, reduced, disrupted and leaderless Soviet INF unit left behind in the woods tried to make a break for it but was chased down, spotted and annhilated by German OBA at the last moment at 15:45/turn 20, leaving no survivors to tell of this bloodbath. The end result: a virtually undisputed, major German victory.

I believe that despite any possible balance shift in favor of Germany that this is one of the best that 'Eastern Front' has to offer for the sheer enjoyment of playing it and merits a "4" rating from me. A Soviet victory or draw is not impossible here on a better day, with perhaps a more imaginative deployment and most importantly, better dice rolls. Also, the 20 turn length kind of gives the German player the hotfoot to keep units moving and makes the first half of this kind of tense for them. There are so many ways this one could go with a lot more losses on the German end, perhaps with some of the Soviets going on the offensive before the town is attacked instead of mostly remaining static? Once the urban assaults begin, provided the engineers are still around the town will likely fall under German control but time is of the essence and could see the German timetable getting disrupted earlier on. However, this day belonged to the Infantry Regiment Grossdeutschland and they literally got the red(s) out like Visine!