Daniel and I played this scenario in about 3 hours of playing time. Despite the long playing surface the Soviets really aren't defending all that much except the large hill to the very north. Certainly there are places to delay the Germans along the way (2 smaller hills and two single hex towns) but the large hill is the prize.

With a significant force advantage and a morale advantage I decided to change my normal, hell-bent for leather, approach and decided to be a little more deliberate. I figured that, early on in my playing of PG I played a scenario of EFDx which had about 40 turns and I raced to a conclusion within 15 turns. I think I named my AAR "Patience". Here, about 300+ scenarios later, I decided to take my own advice.

Daniel set up with his AT rifles dug in as a delaying force then the towns held some infantry and AT guns. The mortars were in the northwestern corner of the board and absolutely everything else was on the large hill with three entrenchments lined up behind the minefields and the 76s dug in on the back edge of the hill.

My troops started out completely in the fields and moved to overwhelm the poor AT rifles, done within the first hour or so. At that point my forces were pretty much hidden on the two smaller hills, including all of the vehicles and guns. The next movement was to take the eastern town, helped immensely by artillery and mortar strikes which shook the defenders and then an assault accompanied by engineers finished it off.

While that battle was ongoing two companies of SS troopers moved to the northwest, across the front of the second town to envelope the mortars. While they were moving there were sporadic shots from the massed 76s. After a few shots, though, the German artillery moved to silence those guns and had some effect, finishing one of the batteries after two hours and then continuing to keep them disrupted or demoralized throughout the rest of the battle. Daniel did have terrible luck with his artillery strikes while I had incredibly good luck, hammering the Soviets again and again.

After the first 2 1/2 hours, my troops had reached the mortars and were reducing them. At the same time the larger force of infantry had been able to approach the second town and entered it relatively untouched. By four hours into the battle I was beginning to approach the large hill with no outlying Soviet forces remaining unoccupied.

This is nothing like me. I'm sure that at this point Daniel was wondering what organism had taken over my body and was playing this game. I have often been in the position of rushing forward with insufficient force in order to begin the assaults as soon as possible, taking horrendous losses but forcing the issue. I have never been careful and dispassionate about movement and preparing assaults with strong fire support, etc. Frankly there were times when it didn't even feel like me but when we hit the 22nd turn and the Soviets had lost all but a few steps and I had only lost 5 I began to think this might be a little more effective when there are enough turns...

In any event, I ended up approaching the hill from the northwest, avoiding the direct assault. Eventually, Daniel had to use the SU-122 and immediately after it fired my StGs were in position to reduce it and then move up to participate in the assaults, especially since the direction of the assaults took them directly over the remaining 76s. It was all over except for a few running Soviet leaders by turn 25.

While I really enjoyed the results of my more conservative attack the play itself was highly one sided. As I mentioned above, the Germans only lost 5 steps and no weapons or vehicles while all of the Soviets were eliminated. A chunk of these results were certainly the result of luck but it seems very hard for the Soviets to do more than hunker down and hope for the best in this one. I would suggest it more as a solitaire study but would defer to Daniel's judgment as the Soviet player. In any event, it didn't have a ton of tension. I give it a "3".