I didn't put much faith in the German attack even before setting up the Soviet defenses. Just reading into the specifics threw up plenty of red flags. The Germans are outnumbered over two-to-one; have a good distance to travel; must clear woods on two boards; take control of all town hexes on board 3; traverse minefields and tackle entrenchments all in the course of 24 turns. However, this scenario had a decent rating and was up next on my list so I had to give it a go and see how much could be accomplished given the circumstances.

The Soviets have a lot of options available to them for deployment between two of the three boards. The first thing I made sure to do was to deploy a few platoons of INF on the hill in the central map to make a dash for the woods on board 1 along with both a 45mm AT gun, 76.2mm battery and 82mm mortars also deployed on the hill to delay German forces from using the east-west road to get to Yelnia. Another 45mm AT gun was tucked away in the northern woods just west of the town. Then I set-up the final defensive lines and took liberty to make sure that the eight allowed entrenchments were widely dispersed from north through the town and around it and further south through the woods. I didn't mine the bridge or river hexes but instead interwined the minefields and decoys between entrenchments. Also, I refrained from placing many units in the western portion of the town facing the German advance and held most of the town defenders in the eastern sector except for one 45mm AT gun; two town hexes were left vacant but for the Germans to get to them they would take an enormous amount of opportunity fire from adjacent entrenched HMG postions. It's hard to describe this defense in words, without an actual picture but the idea was to make a frontal assault on the town very difficult to manuever through just one narrow and clear path. Sure, the Germans may be able to break in and take the vacant town hexes but not without heavy losses or failed morale checks and once inside they would be trapped, surrounded and likely not in good enough strength or numbers to press on a serious assault.

The battle kicks off with the Germans rolling into plain sight of the enemy but quickly demobilizing units loaded on the SPW halftracks out of range of the AT capable weapons deployed on the hill. Since the Germans are spotted right away Soviet units are free to move and the INF brave OBA fire in the attempt to get to the western woods. The upstart Soviet 6-0-0 LT is disrupted (and soon easily eliminated) along with one platoon but three platoons of INF make it to those woods. Since the German halftracks can't really advance much further down the road without being blown to scrap-metal they are sent triple stacked in masses to take on those leaderless INF who don't get very far into the woods. Of course those now leaderless INF units won't last long but they will burn up time and will also get a column shift in making counter-assaults against AFVs on their own without INF support. So the first of many Soviet delaying actions begins as these woods have to be cleared as part of the German VCs. Meanwhile, some German INF units make straight for the hill to clear out support weapons while the other units make fast towards Yelnia. The panzers circle around north to avoid AT fire and take the slow path towards and through the northern woods to emerge on the other side to provide fire support across the river.

The next delay comes at the hill. While the mortars and 76.2mm are quickly eliminated the one 45mm gun there makes quite a nuissance of itself. Only two platoons of German INF are left behind to finish it off but it manages to disrupt the whole company and hold it's ground. Even once the INF recover and assault it they continue hold out much longer then anticipated. The remaining German foot units make for the next AT gun within the northern woods and it has even more fight left in it. German OBA fails to eliminate it; small-arms fire fails and then even an assault on it gets bogged down. The Soviet AT guns have managed to accomplish a lot in this battle as spoilers by utterly disrupting an already very short timetable well before the town itself is in sight. Eventually German foot units begin to cross the river piecemeal and make some sort of effort against the town and western wooded area (presumedly Spruce Grove?) and here even more disappointments await. So much time has been burnt-up already just to mount the attack that matters the most and disorganization runs rampant. There is no way to make a coordinated frontal attack and not enough time or space allowed to attack from the rear. There are too many assaults required at this point between the town and the entrenched woods and not enough German units in place to many effective ones. One relief is that a decoy mine is revealed on the road adjacent to the town and an assault is made on the lone 45mm AT gun there. Again, just one AT gun manages to contest this town hex against incredible odds. At this point I had become utterly frustrated with playing the Germans. Hastily I sent some PzIIs in for support but they had to cross another mine; this one was not a decoy and sure enough one of those panzers took a step loss from the 1-pointer mine. The remaining PzII joins the assault hoping to tip the scales but again the 45mm remains unphased. The 45mm returns AT fire within the assault hex and another PzII takes a step loss. I know it's just a game and a solo play but by now I was on the verge of profanity!

I had now all but given up with the German attack with just a few turns left, knowing this battle was lost but was still determined to get something done. So all focus was now placed on the entrenchments within the woods -forget Yelnia! And it was there that the Germans made anything resembling progress; two of the three entrenchments there were taken. Then, with just a few turns left the convoy of SPW251s finally arrive for support. They took a while to recover and organize as they suffered a few disruptions from clearing the Soviet INF out of the woods further west. Boldly they begin to cross the river to attack the last entrenchment in the grove and two of them get picked off from well aimed opportunity fire. However, there are still seven of them left and they are still able to make an assault but like many others failed to get any results before battle's end. And what of the mighty panzers other than the PzIIs? Well they too had their share of disappointment. They moved towards the north edge of town to hose down the defenders with DF and got a rude awakening once the lead PzIVE failed a morale check from opportunity fire and was sent fleeing after becoming demoralized. The remaining PzIIIHs made an assault on one of the entrenchments on their own without INF support without any effect and were soon repulsed. All in all the German attack on the town was a complete failure with only one town hex ever contested. The only gains made were control of just two entrenchments in the woods. 10th Panzer Division would have to answer to a very livid Guderian.

This was a hard scenario to rate from a solo play; I would like to think I did very well with the Soviet deployment and defense while on the other hand feel I did very poorly with the German attack. I think towards the end I let my frustration get the best of me. However, after reading a few other reports I can see that it is just a very tough task to meet all the German VCs with the small force provided and with no assault ENG units. If one of the best axis players (Vince Hughes) had a tough time at it then I couldn't of done that bad overall with the Germans. Perhaps if German casualities were ignored, especially with the panzers then maybe more could of been accomplished. The PzIIIH and PzIVEs do have an armor rating of 4 but I played it too safe with them even up against the 45mm AT guns by keeping them at long range away from them and delaying their advance towards Yelnia; I also failed to use those more powerful panzers combined with INF in assaults. There was a lot I could of done differently if I had allowed the possiblity of more German step losses but there was not enough time to play it safe. Then again, with the small amount of German foot units you can't afford many losses either. However unbalanced this scenario may be I can still give it a straight 3/5 rating; it did provide quite a challenge. I would have to play it again solo, at least once, before comfortably going against a Soviet player FTF. A few people have logged in German wins here but sadly no AARs to mention how they managed it.