This was played Wayne Baumber face-to-face and completed on the 12th May 2009. We had set ourselves to play all four Sol'tsy scenarios from the March On Leningrad pack)

Around 0800 hours first contact was made between the two foces at distance. The lead elements of Kampfgruppe Fromhofer, a motorcycle recon battalion pushed forward to initiate contact with Soviet detachments located on a forward hill position plus those lurking in a large forested area beyond that.(Wayne likes his troops lurking in woods). Meanwhile, a forward Luftwaffe OP SPW began initiating communication for air support to attack these Soviet positions.

The swift advance on the forward hill position soon secured the high ground for the German force to advance north of the battlefield, German panzers and another company of motorcycles advanced on the forested area. This area was cannily occupied by the defenders, and the main road running through it was also defended in depth by Soviet infantry well dug-in along the roadside itself. Battle was now truly joined as some Soviet T60's advanced on the invaders in support of their own infantry. Initially, the German recon battalion gained early success as they appeared to be winning the infantry battle. But the numbers of the Soviets, plus their supporting tanks began to tell against the Germans. German armour seemed unable to manaouvre into position to attack the T60's and when they finally did so, the 3 platoons of Russian tanks made off suffering just 1 step loss in their evasion.

Two hours of battle had thus far provided 1 Soviet armour step loss and 5 infantry steps. The Germans had lost 1 step of m/cycles.

Things took a dramatic turn upon the sudden arrival of Soviet reinforcements in the north. With a good advantage in weight of numbers and armour, the defenders switched from a fallback defence to an aggressive counter-attack upon the enemy. This attack came down swiftly with the aforementioned forested areas being re-taken with the Russian tanks pressing aggressively as well whilst out of sight of their armoured counter-parts. With the Luftwaffe having been and gone with minimal effect, the furious attack on the Germans began to produce some unwanted casualties on them. With about 5 step losses by 1100 hours, a timely appearance by the panzers in the immediate area dramatically turned the tide once again in the Germans favour.

Wehrmacht tanks, assisted by some distant 88mm guns viciously and without mercy brewed up any Soviet metal beasts that dared come within their sights. One whole troop (3 platoons) of BT's were wiped out by 38t's as they fired at them from close range, ripping the BT's apart. Those that did survive were immobilised, but were then set upon bythe German recon unit who threw grenades down the turret hatches and used point black machine-pistol fire to finish off the crews, still stunned in the remains of their tanks. Meanwhile, the infantry battle raged all around the area with both sides losses totting up considerably. The recon battalion by far took the brunt of the German losses, whilst Soviet infantry from the 177th Division absorbed horrible losses too.

After this intense segment of the battle came to a conclusion and a local Soviet defeat, the rest of the battle seemed to simply fall apart for the Russians. German reinforcement infantry, though being opposed were advancing to the south of the battlefield. The surviving recon units had taken the central forest as Soviets ran around completely leaderless in there, whilst to the north, the battlefield became a scrap-metal dump as no less than 13 steps of Russian armour were destroyed without German loss. Under such circumstances and with no chance of holding the position west of the river line, the Soviet commander surrendered the field to retire behind the river. From what had appeared to be looking like a long slow and grinding battle over many many hours, the circumstances mutated into a whirlwind affair that ended by 1230 hours. Total Soviet losses were around 28 infantry steps and 13 AFV steps. German losses were 10 infantry steps (mainly all on the recon units). The German advance to Sol'tsy continue !

(Both Wayne and I found this a exciting battle to take part in and was a great opener to the Sol'tsy series)