Excellent scenario, excellent game played face to face. We generally use all optional rules except for Logistics shortfall so that the soviet defender (that’s me) receives hidden units. Thus, the KV1, KV2, T35 and all AT guns are kept hidden (mostly in the woods) and set dispersed all along the defense line to make best use of crossfire opportunities. The infantry and artillery is defending the two large towns at the back. Furthermore, I set up some of the T26 hidden and an important one on map 06 in woods hex 0606 along with infantry. That force will be kept hidden as long as possible as to be able to fire the Germans from the back. The trap worked perfectly: despite the efforts of the German infantry to explore the woods, some areas remained neglected since it was taking too much time. When the hidden T26 eventually fired and set up crossfire, it was a massacre: PzIVs and PzIIIs suffered heavily being fired from the other side by KV2 and T35. The Soviet infantry continued to hide in the woods in the back of the Germans so that more German infantry was forced to hunt it again and lose more precious time. Moreover, the German return fire missed the T26 so that more German tanks were killed. Soviet aircraft and artillery then killed the potent 88mm battery...Although the tank duels went on and the German infantry slowly destroyed the Soviet positions, too much time had been lost by the attacker and too many tank losses eroded his power. Finally, the KV1 and KV2 remained the masters of the battlefield and the two towns held by the Soviets never were attacked. Major Soviet victory. Of course, this scenario would probably feel very different if played without hidden units. Finally, if I had to play it again from the German side, I would try to put all the pressure on one map only and not on the whole width.

Interesting scenario in that both sides earn VPs for different objectives or denying the enemy from achieving those objectives, with the normal steps eliminated. For the Soviets it was control of the town hexes which were worth 24 VPs if they could maintain all in their control while denying the Germans 10 VPs for clearing maps 5 & 6 of Soviet forces and limit their step losses would almost guarantee the win.

And so went this scenario, about half the German infantry spent most of the game trying to clear maps 5 & 6 of Soviet forces but they took disproportionally high casualties in doing so and in the end never completely cleared either map by game end, which did not leave enough forces to help gain any town hexes.

The other German force struggles as well with the Soviet armor, it did not help that the Flak 88 got eliminated by an artillery barrage early on, being spotted by a demoralized Soviet officer who decided to roll snake eyes for recovery. The panzertruppen then spent themselves trying to knock out the KV tanks, they came close several times, but all shots bounced off, the Soviets had no problem rolling for kills.