Turns 1, 2, 3. The Soviets move their armor forward. Both sides trade artillery and mortar fire with minimal results. The Germans deploy their 50mm ATG forward in the center. The Germans expend their OBA on the center Soviet position, get some disruption and assault. The Soviets lose 1T-34b step but hold the center. The Germans haVe massed their forces in depth for an all out assault in the center.

Turn 4. The German armor reinforcements do not make it on the map. The German air misses. The Soviets lose 3 more steps in the center as the Germans keep grinding out the attack.

Turn 5, 6, 7. The Germans keep pressure on the center. The Soviets have to keep their armor committed to the German flanks. The center remains a bitterly contested battle with the Soviets holding on, but the German assaults and artillery are taking their toll on both Soviet infantry and armor. The Soviets lose their Su-122, having left them too far forward.

Turn 8, 9, 10. Constant back and forth fighting as both sides reinforce their fronts. The Germans finally take the right most peak of the Soviet occupied center hill. To keep a hold of the left peak, the Soviets commit T-34s in an attempt to retain the position.

Turn 11. The German armor finally arrives, pushing forward in the center and on the German right.

Turn 12, 13. The German air whiffs. Both sides try to recover the numerous disrupted and demoralized units in the center.

Turn 14. The Germans finally clear the entrenchments on the first hill. Soviet armor pushes deep in to the German left flank however, constituting a serious threat to the German mortars and 20mm batteries. The Germans are forced to reorient some of their armor to counter the Soviet threat.

Turn 15, 16. The German armor eliminates the Soviet armor leader on the German left, but not before the Soviets eliminate a 20mm battery. Soviet infantry, counterattacking on the German left, is caught in the open and demoralized. The Soviets, losing ground in the center and on the right, pull infantry and armor back on line with the second Russian position in the center.

Turn 17, 18. The Soviets, having suffered steady losses, are to the breaking point. The Soviet armor fell back behind the main line to be able to respond to a thrust by the German armor in the center. The German armor pushed forward, but only enough to stretch the already thin Soviet defenses. After another German assault in the center and the thin Soviet line snapped.

At this point, the Soviets were broken. They had neither the strength to hold what positions they had, or take what they had lost. The VP tally was Germans 36 Soviets 7.

In the end a breakthrough had been made by the armor in the center. But, with the Soviets still having some of their armor and occupying the remainder of their positions, the Germans did not push forward and get the spearhead cut off.

My first solo game for a while and my first from Burning Tigers. This scenario is quite curious as although this is Kursk and the German's are on the attack its the Soviets who will need to attack before the German armour reinforcements arrive. However the German commander in my game launched an attack on the small 40m ridge in the middle of board 41.With accurate artillery and machine gun fire the ridge was cleared with heavy Soviet losses. This led to an Guards counter attack on the ridge which was beaten off again with high Russian losses. The soviet commander then threw his T34's into the fray, alone and unsupported, they failed to make much headway at first but when recovering Guards INF and HMG units rejoined the battle the central ridge was once again in Russian hands although the German units had withdrawn with only light casualties. The Soviets and attacked both the German flanks bit finally the German AFV's arrived on the scene in the ensuing Tank contest losses were fairly even but coupled to the Russian losses earlier in the battle the Germans were always on top in VP's. The Luftwaffe then joined in, and finding a company of demoralized Soviet Guards sheltering behind the Russian lines, had great success with their Stukas. The game ended with the combatants back in their original positions, but with the Russian almost halved in numbers they would be unable to mount any effective defense should the German's mount further attacks. Not a bad scenario, if my game was any guide then it will be a very cluttered board around that central ridge, not sure if it is as unbalanced as my game panned out with the Germans having 20 more VP's than the Soviets. Still a bit of a slugfest IMHO.

At 1545 on July 5, 1943, elements of the German 19th Panzer Division of Army Detachment Kempf established a bridgehead over the Northern Donets River during the first day of Operation Citadel. Once the bridgeheads were secured to protect the flank of the advancing II SS Panzer Corps, the tankers could move northward. However, determined Soviet forces from the 228th Guards Rifle Regiment and 78th Guards Rifle Division were entrenched along with the 4th Anti-tank Rifle Battalion on a ridge East of the German position. In the area due east of the hill, elements of both the 262nd Tank Regiment and 1438th Self-propelled Artillery Regiment remained out of sight of the German advance. Both flanks below the hillside were also mined. As the German infantry probed the left flank, they were surprised by three platoons of T-34’s, which caused a rapid retreat along with significant casualties. The fighting then centered on a series of skirmishes between the two ridges on the hilltop east of the river. At 1645, the Panzers began to arrive to support the infantry; however, by then the T-34’s and an Su-122 had moved forward along the German left flank, and they caught the arriving Panzers in a vicious crossfire that destroyed both a Panzer IIIg and IIIj. By 1715, the Panzers had established their position on the battlefield and moved forward behind the Soviet troops on the ridge. They were able to inflict damage on the Soviet reserves east of the hills, and, by 1830, ultimately took control of the town and trail over a mile east of the hilltop. Then, a contingent of the German infantry, along with an engineer platoon, moved forward on the German right flank toward the village SE of the hilltop. Meanwhile, the Soviet troops on the hilltop had moved west with support from the T-34’s (the Su-122 had succumbed to fire from the Panzers by 1800). A series of clashes on the west edge of the hilltop resulted in the loss of Major Higgendorff, and Captain Faschenbader replaced him in command resulting in morale issues with two of the other officers. The Soviet progress had the German troops back on their heels, but a logistical shortfall that occurred around 1915, followed by a critical shortfall at 2000, compromised the Soviet opportunity to push the beleaguered Germans from the hilltop. During this period, the Panzers and the engineer platoon, now transported in an SPW-251, had moved eastward out of range. Based on victory points that were determined at 2030, the Germans had a 61-48 edge for a “major victory”.

This scenario has been described by others as a “slugfest” and I found it to be much the same. If I hadn’t used the shortfall optional rules, the Soviets would no doubt fared better, but could they have picked up the additional 13 points needed for a draw? Probably not based on the way the hilltop skirmishes played out. So, despite some remarkably fortunate die rolls for the Soviets throughout the scenario, they fell short. The final count on actual step loss points was 39-38 in favor of the Soviets. The Germans held the only town that was not contested at the end, while the Soviets claimed the hilltop hexes 9-3, with one still being contested. The big difference came from the 14 points that the Germans accrued from moving units off the east edge of the map (14 points) and a one-step engineer unit and full strength Pz.IIIn east of the trail at the end of the game (5 points). Both of the latter options seemed a bit gamey, since a real-life situation would have left those units isolated behind the lines with the Soviets reclaiming the bridgehead; however, these were the victory conditions, and the German army played it to win.

As the Soviet, I was supposed to put the heat on the Germans early on in this game. What was especially strange was the set up: opposing forces on a strangely shaped hill, basically facing each other across a road, a span of only 200 yards. As the Soviet, I was too concerned about getting my infantry slaughtered in frontal assaults on the German positions, so I tried to use my T34s for that purpose. However, one of my tank leaders was knocked out early on, and I never really managed to use the tanks effectively. I tried a few advances but was repulsed each time. The game was beginning to look like a German victory, with our positions effectively being the same as those we started with. So I moved up some tanks and infantry in a final desperate bid to make something happen, and they were all blown to hell.

The loss of hills as limiting terrain really changes the feel of this game. I'm not sure that I like it.