By the conclusion of turn 25/11:00 the Germans and Soviets both stopped fighting with the control of the larger town on map 2 disputed as they had both met step-loss victory conditions through attrition. Losses were about equal though slightly in favor of the Soviets. So, what went wrong? Well, nothing on the part of the Soviets. The Germans realized much too late that taking the town was beyond their means but only after investing in too many urban assaults gone wrong and the loss of too many panzers. In hindsight the best strategy for the Germans would have been to "Hit it and quit it" but even generating 33 Soviet step losses was hard enough with units engaged at such close quarters. In this case the Germans did not manage this until there were just three turns left to go. The Soviets on the other hand inflicted their 20+ German step losses at 09:45/turn 20.

A few notes about the battle: First off, the Germans were in such a hurry to storm the town on map 2 that they almost forgot to take the uncontested, smaller town on map 1! That was soon remedied by sending a unit back which had not yet disembarked from it's truck transport. Immediately Soviet units made a beeline to occupy the larger town with minimal losses on the approach. Once there they found that they had just enough strength to at least prevent the Germans from seizing total control of it. The Germans on the other hand were complacent from the earlier successes of Barbarossa and thought, as their führer did, that all they had to do was "kick the door down and that the whole roof would collapse" -they were sadly mistaken. After 2 hours/8 turns, with time ticking away the Germans began to mount some disasterous urban assaults in an ambitous effort to take the town without successfully weakening the defenders with direct or indirect fire. Those three assaults on the western portion of the town remained bogged down for most the battle and in the end only one of the three contested hexes of many eventually fell under German control. The one bright moment for the Germans was when the 6th Panzer Division reinforcements arrived right on time from the east at 08:00/turn 13 and in turn raised the German intiative by 2 points. Initially a lot of the Bt-7s holed up in the town were easily elimated while the T-34As kept firing back blanks in return. Soon enough however the T-34s found their marks and began tearing the more formidable panzers apart and the only German tanks really capable of doing any damage to the T-34s (the one platoon of PzIVEs) were reduced, demoralized and sent fleeing the battlefield. After that it was pretty much all downhill for the German assault on the town with their losses continuing to pile up. A random event occured at 09:30/turn 19, which added insult to the German's injuries when a Soviet sniper efficiently picked off the German Major. The next turn the Soviets reach their enemy step-loss VCs. Now the Germans were fighting for a draw with limited and shrinking resources but with shrewd resolve were finally able to extract the 33 required Soviet steps right before time ran out.

I think this was a good scenario that would of made for a better face-to-face match. It gets an average "3" rating for my solo play. In conclusion I believe the best German approach would be to forget taking the town despite the lower Soviet morale -there'e just too many of them and too many town hexes to take. Perhaps if the initial German urban assaults were more successful and timely then things would of turned out differently, maybe not. One thing for sure this is that this one ended in a bloodbath and both sides saw a decisive victory elude them. The Soviets did seem to hold together a lot better than their aggressors in the bitter end after getting rolled over in so many other earlier urban struggles.