This scenario is well known for being stacked against the Russians. The only real advantage they have is numbers, which doesn't account for much when going against combined arms in a city. However, it does let the Russians spread out along the entire map to allow flanking infiltrations of the town, no matter how the Germans set up. They can pin key German units in assaults while taking the rest of the city, and then hope for some lucky die rolls to take the whole thing, right?

At set up, the Germans declined to contest the hill, and thus the Russian board entry; instead focusing on tightly defending the frontage of the town. Their tanks were set up guarding the approach on the north/south road, machine guns guarded the south eastern corner, and the artillery took a central position behind the front line. The infantry units concentrated on the south west and south east corners leaving a gap in the center. If the Russians wanted to drive into this gap, they would have to get through the cross fire of the machine guns and tanks, so exploitation seemed unlikely.

The Russians entered the board overloading their infantry on the right in an attempt to overwhelm the German defenses. A small force of infantry also moved up the center to divert fire away from the main column and heavy weapons, or take advantage of the center if the Germans allowed. The AT guns and artillery attempted to set up on the hill to provide fire into the towns, and compel the Germans to withdraw their tanks from the front. They also left their mortars behind the hill so as to protect them from enemy spotting and begin firing earlier. Their cavalry entered on the far left in an attempt to flank on the left and probe for weakness and targets of opportunity if they presented themselves.

Early action in this scenario was fairly onesided. The lone brightspot for the Russians was that a German LT was sent running forward to attempt to spot for artillery behind the hill. He was quickly captured by the advancing cavalry before any bombardment could be called in. On and off board artillery fire destroyed all the Russian 76s and one of the 45s before they could get in position on the hill, but this did allow the infantry to advance on the right relatively unmolested. The Germans repositioned their infantry to guard against the main Russian body, leaving the left protected only by their tanks which were pushing back the minor Russian infantry force in the center.

As the game developed, the Russian Cavalry was able to flank around the tanks on the left and ended up tying down the German 105s an one INF unit in a perpetual assault. The remaining 45 battery popped one step off of the tanks, which withdrew towards the right after the Russian center dissolved. The Russians were able to advance their main infantry column up the right side and behind the town, gaining a foothold on the northeast corner. By this time, they were getting torn up by German off board artillery strikes.

Late game ended up devolving into 3 main assaults, which the Russians could not resolve. Throwing more and more men into it would never come out ahead without some more punch (the lack of HMG units was very noticeable). The Germans had no reason to counterattack, so they didnt and remained on the defensive. Ultimately the German reinforcements came and reclaimed the town from the Russians sans the 3 assault hexes and time expired.

Despite losing per the scenario VCs, this was the strongest showing I have ever seen from the Russians on this scenario. The defacto stalemate they caused before the German reinforcements arrive really tempted me to call this one a draw, but those arent the VCs and thems the breaks : /

As a minor note, I was not allowing AT fire against wagon units this game, as I usually play with a strict interpretation of the Truck exception to the no armor value/AT rule. Im not really sure if this played much of a role in this game, but it could have been played differently if it were allowed.

I also allowed for the random event rule for nostalgia purposes while i continue my replay of original PG. It triggered once in this game, giving the Germans air cover for a turn which disrupted the Russian mortars for a turn, but the game was already a stale mate at this point so it really didnt change anything.

If i played this again, I might mix things up, and have the Russians go all out for tank hunting to see if they could trigger the alternate VC. It could make it a bit more interesting.