Germans start holding the 4-hex town on board 37, and while they have a fair array of AT guns and a Marder, it really looked like a fairly easy Russian win. Soviets have 10 platoons of T-34s, 9 tank riding SMG platoons, and 3 units of towed 76.2 guns. In order to win, the Soviets need to take at least part of the town, eliminate German units, and exit a number of steps off the west side of the board. From the start things didnt go as planned for the Soviets as they came under accurate anti-tank fire from the Marders in town, killing a step of tanks and a step of the riders with them. The next turn the Soviets decided to dismount and avance with the tanks rather than on them, but the OBA rolled esceptionally well and the dismounted SMGs took more damage, while the ace Marder crew took another T-34 step. The Soviets had started in 2 columns entering to the north and south of the large group of fields on the east half of board 37, figuring to flank the town, but the Germans had placed an outpost in the southern hexes of the fields with the 50mm AT and 2 infantry platoons dug in, and these started inflicting casualties on the southern Soviet pincer while the northern pincer was being bloodied. The Soviet 76.2s moved into the fields in the northwest sector of board 36 and deployed, and this drew the wrath of the German OBA, which eliminated two of the three guns in just a few turns. German reinforcements of 2 infantry with a LT and 2 StuG-IIIGs entered at the earliest possible moment and while the infantry moved east toward the town, the StuGs fired at long range, joining with the fire of the 50mm and 75mm AT guns on the hapless T-34s of the south pincer. In a matter of turns, the southern pincer was destroyed, all tanks dead on the fiel and the SMG troops reduced to a single platoon, an LT and the force commander, and the northern force, with the T-34s taking the initiative and assaulting into the town, lost heavily, with a single step of T-34s escaping towards the woods in the northeast, where surviving infantry from the northern pincer was trying to recover. Turn 9 ending with 33 steps lost (including the double value for the armor) and not a single German casualty, Ivan decided to leave the field to the Germans with hope that the Kommissars would allow them to live to fight another day. Great game.