Kursk: Burning Tigers, scenario #2: Kempf II: Breakout

This scenario has a nice assortment of unit types on both sides with the Germans having many more, being the attacker. The Soviets have six entrenchments, seven minefields, one town and are dug-in and the Germans have 14 turns with three victory objective or levels depending on how many they achieve. They also have 5 Engineers, lots of tanks and a heavy dose of off-board artillery which they will need.

I setup my Soviets across the board blocking the Germans path and supporting each other pretty well. The Germans can only spend a few turns softening up the Soviets before they just have to move into all those obstacles and do bloody combat as time will run out fast! I did use a few turns to fire the German armor at the Soviet armor. To make a long story short, after 14 turns the Germans clears a path four hexes wide on their far right flank and were able to exit more than 15 steps off the east edge of the map but could not clear all those entrenchments and town hex, so they achieved 2 out of 3 victory objectives for a minor victory. Fun to play but I think hard to get all three objectives for the Germans.

This scenario turned out to be a rollover for Germany, mostly because the terrain effects on movement chart shows 1.5 MP for clear terrain for mechanized units. My opponent and I only noticed that on the third or fourth turn, and it proved the undoing of the Soviet forces. My Tigers were no longer only partially-mobile behemoths spewing anti-tank fire but only getting half-way across the board. Usually you could never count on Tigers getting anywhere near the opposite side of the board during a 14 turn scenario. But in this game, they were a real threat to the Soviets in terms of the victory conditions.

The Soviet positions were laid out well, and tried to create a killing zone in the middle of the playing area, by putting the AT guns along the sides and using the minefields to create a kind of funnel to crowd the Germans in the middle. But the Germans' airplane every turn proved especially useful early on- they cleared out two of the three guns before the 5th game turn. Clearing the entrenchments and town wasn't without a few casualties, but the German initiative modifier stayed at +4 until about the 8th turn. By turn 10 the Soviets had just about nothing left to stop the German advance. Even the Tigers were only two or three moves from possibly exiting the board.

Again, seeing through the fields and onto the hills completely changes the complexion of this game. Having played with rule set 3 for so long, it is difficult to adjust tactics and strategy.

The Soviets were dug in pretty well with mutually supporting positions. But, the Germans were able to engage at range with their armor, and the Soviets could do,little as the German combined arms attack broke through the line. The Germans suffered losses in getting the breakthrough and the Soviets counterattacked with their armor, but it was dispatched by the superior German armor firepower. The Germans were able to cut a corridor along the southern map edge from west to east and exit 27 steps off. German victory.

In this scenario, a strong German combined arm force has to force the Russian defense lines, exit units and clear a corridor for the follow up unit. The Soviet forces have entrenchments, mines and a reasonable sized armour force but this armour has to face a whole company of Tigers. The Russian set up with a minefield across the centre with T34's dug in behind them, both flanks had entrenchments with a reserve in the woods behind the centre. The Germans force enter the map with the Tigers to the fore, thus causing the T34 to retreat behind the woods. The right Russian flank held firm and even mounted a limited counter attack, the left flank crumbled under a skillful attack with German engineers supported by Tanks and INF. After a couple hours the Soviet commander had to throw in the tanks in an effort to stem the attack, this only worked for a short time and eventually the Tiger's got the range and brewed up several T34's. This was about all she wrote, as the German forces just rolled forward and off into the distance. The German's having made two objectives this was a German minor victory. For the Germans the only main decision is to go for the 2 out of the 3 objectives and I should imagine that going for the exit is reasonably easy objective then its a case of either taking ground or ensuring the corridor is clear of units. This is not a bad little scenario ideal for a single session

At 1300 on July 5, 1943, elements of the German 7th Panzer Division and 503rd Heavy Panzer Detachment of Army Detachment Kempf ran into stiff opposition during the first day of Operation Citadel. As they moved westward, they encountered a Soviet defensive line with minefields and entrenched & dug-in units from the 228th Guards Rifle Regiment, 78th Guards Rifle Division, 1st Anti-tank Rifle Battalion and 1438th Self-propelled Artillery Regiment. The central portion of the line was mined, with T-34, T-70 and SU-122 platoons dug in behind the minefields. The Germans opened fire with a massive artillery barrage and FW-190 sweep, and Soviet artillery responded once German targets were in sight. This was followed by a German armor advance in Panzerkeil formation with Tiger platoons at the point across the front. By 1330, the Soviet supply lines were compromised by Luftwaffe strafing of supply convoys resulting in a logistical shortfall. Meanwhile, fire from the Tiger platoons had claimed both a T-34B and a T-70. Tanks continued to exchange fire on both flanks, and a T-34C was destroyed on the German right by 1400. At 1415, another T-34C was brewed up by a PzIVH, but German supplies began to run short as well, a situation that became critical by 1500. By that time, the Germans had overrun an entrenchment with one of the Tigers on their right flank and were starting to open a lane from West to East. Another T-34B was eliminated by a PzIVH on that flank, but two PzIIIN’s ran out of fuel and were stalled. While continuous German assaults on the other Soviet entrenched units went on for another 1 ½ hours, the Germans were unable to clear a wide enough path free of Soviet resistance to claim success. This gave the Soviets a minor victory.

This scenario can be tough for a German victory if a strong Soviet defensive line is set up. In this case, the Soviets had interspersed their minefields and entrenchments in a defensive line from North to South, with all units in between dug in. The line was five hexes from the Western edge, which limited the amount of German units that could get into play without suffering stalls due to opportunity fire. When the Germans were able to penetrate the line and breakthrough, it was easy to get 15 points off the board to achieve one objective, but the Soviet forces were tough to clear from the entrenchments. There were two factors that prevented the Germans from achieving at least a minor victory by establishing a 4 hex wide path across the board: 1) the critical shortfall was very limiting, particularly in terms of armor survival, and this optional rule was probably inappropriate for this scenario; 2) fog of war came into play on 9 of the 14 turns, and some turns were extremely time-limited for the Germans to have a chance to move units into position. The Germans only captured one of the six Soviet entrenchments, but were engaged in assaults in the other five; however, they could never rout all of the Soviet units from them. In terms of step losses, the Soviets lost 44 steps to the Germans’ 24, and a good number Soviet units were either disrupted or demoralized for many of the latter turns, but enough of them retained their positions in the entrenchments to hold the line.