This scenario was played FTF with Wayne Baumber over 6 heavy sessions taking a total of 32 hours 15 minutes of actual play. That was no surprise given that it is the 5th biggest scenario in PG history to date (as far as counter count goes). There was also a pre-game session where we had to sort out leaders, errata and just general game preparation. Before attempting this scenario both players should make sure to get their heads together to thrash out the various errata. Wayne has already alluded to some of the counter-issues in his AAR and also the outrageous omission of the missing board. There are other matters too such as the frozen river not being mentioned (but they are frozen in all the other MARS scenarios). But once all that is through then it is time to get on with the game itself.

This monster battle is supposedly set on the 30th November 1942, but scenarios elsewhere and also within this Tank Battles book seem to show the battle fought anywhere between the 27th-30th. Whatever the facts are, what we have here is a huge attack of Soviet Guards, supported by tanks of all shapes and sizes ranging from T34s and KVs down to the weedier T60s. Added to this are numerous cavalry forces and RKKA infantry & SMG’s troops. There are also no less than 6 x BM13 batteries and 4 x 76mm batteries. In all, there are 195 Soviet combat units. Facing these and required to defend 5 x towns is a fairly upbeat German force that will be definitely (or should be) well-disciplined and hardy as their morale of 8 equals that of the Soviet Guards forces. Unfortunately for them each of the towns needed to be protected are each on one of the 5 boards, so the German will have to decide where to be weaker and where to add weight to his defence. His reinforcements of mainly AFV’s will enter over a 19 turn period. Heer forces including reinforcements come to 78 combat units of which 15 are AT, AA & IG units. The set-up is very interesting as both sides will need to write down their entry points and set-up positions as it is a dual set-up.

For victory, it is a simple question of whom gains most points. There are points for eliminating enemy troops, hardware and trucks. For each 10 steps eliminated the Soviet gets 7pts the German 5pts. The 5 towns combined are worth 45pts to both sides. To gain the points for a town, it has to be completely controlled and not disputed. So with the large intro onto the battle itself. Rather than write a blow by blow account I thought it would be simpler to write about each town and what went on around those.

The setting is 0900 hours on a Monday morning 30th November 1942. The snow has been heavy and will inhibit any troop movements, especially off road. The Soviets Operation Mars has been raging for around 5 days now and the garrisons in this cluster of towns have been waiting for the Red Wave to surge against them. Now was their time.

NIKONOVO: This 5 hex town was really where the whole brunt of the main battle took place. It is the most forward located town to the Soviet entry on board 3 and is in south-east corner of the map. There is also a large wood to its north. The German forces here consisted of a SrG platoon backed by an AA & 50mm gun. The rest were a mix of infantry and HMG’s. Each town hex was set up with 2 units in it and a strong-point in 2 of the hexes. As the battle kicked off at 0900 hours, these German counters were about to face the largest onslaught of troops Wayne and I had ever seen on our PG tables. Coming into sight from the east and leading the attack were 3 battalions of Soviet Guards with a smattering of some Penal troops. Tanks were also advancing cautiously, aware of the guns of the StGs located in Nikonovo. The lighter tanks, artillery and BM13’s advanced out of sight behind a line of woods. The snow laden terrain slowed the Soviets down and whilst the Germans could, they directed their OBA into the ranks of this immense throng of Red Army strength. In general the OBA was reasonably accurate and a number of Soviet steps were blown away with the artillery power. Crossing the frozen river and finally coming into range of German direct-fire, the small amount of Penal troops took the first salvoes of enemy fire. Being killed, breaking or simply hugging the ground, these poor souls, neglected by their commanders would advance no further. Then the first wave of guards closed in. Fire from point blank range and OBA caused the leading guardsmen to reel back and waver. Counter Soviet fire from their own guns, rockets and rifles also caused losses and disruptions to the German troops in Nikonovo. Furthermore, in the woods to the north of the town, the German troops were suffering in the early exchanges and had retired westwards to the wood’s edge.

By 1030am the town was effectively surrounded and under severe pressure. German OBA kept ploughing into the enemy and the garrison were firing furiously as the Guards kept attempting to close into the town. A KV1 step was also destroyed by the StG’s. Meanwhile German reinforcements in the form of 3 x PzIV plns were ‘speeding’ (at 2 hexes per turn) from the west edge eastwards towards the town to assist. All the time the Guards were attacking Nikonovo yet more Russian troops were entering behind them on the east edge. Guards cavalry and RKKA infantry and MG’s. It seemed the hordes were endless. Nikonovo itself was now resembling a scar on the terrain rather than a town. OBA, Rockets, wrecks let alone thousands of bullets had turned the once innocuous village into a scene from Dante’s Inferno. The initially hard pressed German infantry in the woods outside Nikonovo had staged a comeback and were now carrying out counter-attacks against their tiring enemy. For a time, this resurgence had Soviet troops there on the back foot. Back in Nikonovo assaults abounded in every hex and slowly the Russians were wearing the defenders down and reducing their numbers. The PzIV reinforcements came to within around 400m of Nikonovo to assist in its defence, but they were pounced on by a useful T34 force that had been committed to take them on. At one point, the ensnared Panzers looked as if they would lose all 6 steps, but supporting StG’s, some good luck and an aggressive counter helped extricate the PzIV’s with 2 of the platoons reduced and the other keeping full strength. The T34’s also took losses and were forced to retire out of sight into some woodland.

The battle around Nikonovo lasted all through the 27 turns played (1530 hours) and had still not ceased when Wayne conceded. The Germans were located in just 2 hexes of the 5 hex town. These were both in assault and each consisted of a demoralized reduced INF platoon and a leader. There was no doubt they would fall soon, but we had been saying that throughout the game. In all they had been holding position from 0900-1530 and had been cause of a huge frustration to the enemy. I could not even estimate how many Soviet troops fell around and in Nikonovo. Perhaps 30-40 steps?. One can only imagine the carnage of the place. Bodies around the whole outskirts of the town. Houses and streets smouldering pot-holed shards of wood and brick. Wrecks on many street corners and even more dead in every street, house, garden and square. German casualties here can be calculated to some accuracy and probably came to 15-18 steps. On reflection, Nikonovo’s refusal to fall was what put the rest of the Soviet plans into flux. (Resulted as Soviet control with 8 turns remaining)

MALOE KROPOTOVO: Located exactly on the south of the map and the next town westward from Nikonovo, this location was probably the second objective of the ill-fated Guards attack. The town itself was well manned at the start with infantry, HMG and strongpoints and would receive reinforcing PzIII’s later on. The attack from the east never materialized from the Guards as they were struggling to take Nikonovo. However, from the north, the remaining Guards battalions did begin an advance towards the town. This advance was badly coordinated, using lone officers to try and stretch their command boundaries. In turn, many of these officers were blown away as lone targets in order to remove the brains from the muscle of this Soviet attack. Officers also died during bombardments from normal leader loss and the attack petered out about 600m form the town as there were no leaders except one demoralized one to try and carry it forward. The reinforcing PzIII’s also proved useful with their HE and DF support against any would be advancing enemy. Maloe Kropotovo did receive rocket and artillery bombardments but the accuracy of these against the German positions was poor and did little to no harm. (Resulted as German Control 10pts with 8 turns remaining).

PODOSINOVKA: This town is in the south-west. Quite small but manned of course as Soviet cavalry and other forces were due to enter along here as reinforcements. Sure enough, their cavalry entered this area early on forcing German armour reinforcements to take a slow detour in the snow around them in their trek to reinforce Maloe Kropotovo and Nikonova. The cavalry however stood in the woods doing little. Understandable at that point of the battle. When they received further support in the form of some tanks and foot troops around turn 19 or so an attack was launched on Podosinovka. Like all the other attacks it resulted in high-losses and complete loss of cohesion but inflicting little damage on the defenders. This turned out to be another town easily held. (German controlled 10pts).

MALOE PETRANOVO: A small four hex town located in the far north-west corner of the board. Its initial garrison is a couple of pieces of ordnance and 2 x HMG units. Its position so far in the corner means that it cannot really be realistically supported by personnel reinforcements as getting there will be a treacherous journey over the snow bound terrain and will probably result in such a journey being pounded by Soviet OBA. It is therefore at risk when the Soviet reinforcements from the west enter. This proved to be exactly the case around turn 20, 1345 hours when such reinforcements entered. They wasted no time on advancing on the town led by the rather frightening KV2 monster platoon backed with KV1’s and a few T60’s, followed by the infantry. Coming under a 30col DF attack, the German machine-gunners luckily survived and backed themselves into a corner section of the town. Their only hope lay in entering assault against enemy infantry in the town in order to stop the KV2 and friends laying down their heavy fire upon them. At the time of Wayne conceding the game we disputed whether this town would have fell or not. I could see the machine-gunners and officers with a 24col assault defence being a tricky obstacle to budge given Nikonovo’s stout defence. But Wayne conversely, could see that the weight of numbers and his firepower would whittle them down. Whether that would happen quick enough over 8 turns is the point of debate and when completing this report I shall show the scores with both the German and Soviets in control of the town.

BOL’SHOE KROPOTOVO: Located in the north, this is the big town of board 2. I positioned a good few troops in here but not enough to cover it all. My feeling was that if it was attacked by a full and determined force of Soviets, my troops would not be able to protect the whole town but there would be enough to be a major Soviet headache to get rid of. It was laced with HMG’s and AT guns. Long range INF guns a StG’S completed the support to the infantry. In the event, the Soviets only sent a paltry force mainly consisting of Penal troops to probe the town’s perimeter. After these were duly cut down, some Soviet guards kept a thin line to the south of the town on the only hill on the boards to counter any excursion the Germans might make from the town. The StG platoon ventured out a couple of times once the town was not under threat. It assisted in taking out Soviet armour heading for Maloe Kropotovo and then afterwards, towards Maloe Petranovo to deter the KV2’s becoming embroiled and then spotted by the StGs thus making themselves a target. The early game end meant we never got to that part but it did knock out a couple of T60 steps involved in the attack on that town.

SUMMARY: The final result of town control after Wayne conceded meant that the Germans definitely controlled 3 towns, the Soviets 1 town and 1 town was either Soviet controlled or disputed dependent on opinion. The scenario was a huge beast using 5 boards and with the Soviets controlling around 225 unit counters and 40 leader counters. These forces enter or can enter on all points of the board and thus are a challenge of a player’s ability to logistically control and direct them. I think Wayne must have found this a serious challenge in itself let alone the VC’s especially as many of the turns went the full distance with no FOW interruption. Wayne has dangerously claimed this as an unwinnable scenario for the Soviets, where such previous claims have sometimes been proved awry. It will be interesting to see if 2 players ever take this scenario on again. Again Wayne believes that there won’t be another dual play of this. I hope he is wrong here because I think there are some tricks that the Soviets may have missed this time round. Entry points for example may be worth re-considering and though I do not wish to give other clues (for my own benefit in future games), some other resources could and may be used differently. One way to look at the kind of swing that may be gained with the capturing of certain towns is that 3 of them would result in the Germans having to eliminate 60 step-equivalents just to retain parity. Add to this the forces the Germans lose when losing those towns and the chance of closer points results can be seen. I set up in hedgehogs protecting the towns. The tactic definitely has merit, but if they do become ensnared and trapped, there is no way to help them. With a 35 turn game and with many of the towns (3 of them) close to entry points, the Soviets must make sure that their command chain is secure and not open to being picked off as happened in our game. Of course the theory and reality are two different beasts, but with one complete play of this scenario in the book, any future Soviet commander can take a more patient and deliberate approach.

CASUALTIES AND POINTS: Casualty points are awarded to each side for inflicting step-loss equivalents in batches of 10. The Soviets get 7pts for each 10 inflicted and the Germans 5pts. Then both sides have 45pts available from control of the towns.

Soviet step losses amounted to 68 FOOT, 14 CAV, 31 AFV, 3 GUN, 6 TRUCK and 17 Leaders. Equating to 153 step equivalents, this gives the Germans 75pts. German step losses amounted to 18 FOOT, 7 AFV, 2 APC, 4 GUN, 2 TRUCK and 1 leader. Equating to 36 steps equivalents, this gives the Soviets 21pts.

There were two counts for town control. Germans control Maloe Kropotovo, Podosinovka and Bol’shoe Kropotovo = 30pts Soviets control Nikonovo = 10pts (and if Maloe Petronovo is controlled and not disputed then they receive another 10pts).

Therefore final tally with towns and casualties is Germans 105pts, Soviets 31pts or 41pts. As Wayne said, this is a hard scenario to rate. Errata and pre-game set-up and preparation take up more time. But once it got underway I had a lot of fun with this scenario. It will certainly be memorable which would usually garner a ‘5’ rating from me. But the errata instantly lose it a point. Is it as lop-sided as Wayne says? I really do not know until there are more plays (if they ever occur). Destroying 5 KV1 and 23 T34 steps in a 1942 scenario is some pay back against the Soviet monsters from the 1941 scenarios. Unsurprisingly, this game produced the most allied foot casualties of any scenario. The 68 lost beating by around another 54% that of the 44 lost in “The Utmost Vigour” from South Africa’s War. Gates of Komorn still hold the highest allied AFV loss though. The Soviet Guards losing 43 steps alone of INF plus 8 HMG’s means their 51 losses alone beat the SAW INF loss record just mentioned. This IS a very tough scenario for the Soviets and with complete hindsight it seems to me that the Soviet player must decide on 3 towns he can take the easiest and set up with the sole intention to take those. Assign the forces assiduously and make sure the tools for complete command control and reserve control is there as best as possible. If it comes off, the Germans will be under pressure. For me, this was exciting and when the game started I had no idea how it would run. Therefore, my ‘4’ rating is based on my own personal experience and the memory it will leave with me RATHER than the quality of the scenario writing. I’d love to see another pair take this one on.