This short (in number of turns only) scenario starts with Russian and German dug in lines facing each other accross a north-south road. Russians were lined up just about the whole width of the board, while Germans didnt have the strength to do that, dug in in pockets at the north-, mid-, and south-east edges of the major hill mass with the middle force holding two hexes of a 40m hill, while the Major and infantry hold the town. German AT guns were set up, one on the middle 40m hill, one on a northern edge of the hill around a bend in the hill so that he would get the first shot opportunity at any armor coming around that way, and the 75mm Infantry gun set up in the fields west of the town to prevent an encirclement of the troops holding the town. Russians get reinforcements immediately on turn 1 consisting of T-34s and T-70s, and need to achieve as much as possible of their objectives, such as getting at least 8 steps off the west edge of the board; take all 40m hills; take the town, all in 14 turns. Germans can start rolling for reinforcements of 2 StuG3s, a halftrack mounting the triple 20mm AA gun, and a truck towing an 88, with 2 more leaders, one a Col. Russians jumped off and quickly got into assaults with dug-in Germans all along the line, while armor and infantry skirted the hill to north and south. The T-70s made a dash for the west edge, half to the north and half to the south, and while the fighting was going on all accross the hill, managed to get away well before the German reinforcements appeared. In fact, 2 T-34 platoons set up on the 2-hex hill on the western end of the board to watch for reinforcements, hoping to engage and destroy them soon after entry. Air support, available in limited numbers (winner of a roll-off gets 1 aircraft on the hour) and played little value, even considering the 20 and 24 factor aircraft that did appear for the Germans. The DF rolls just weren't there for them. When the German reinforcements did arrive, they move in just south of the range of the T-34s, making it onto the southwest corner of the big hill in column halftrack leading with the LT, StuGs in the middle, and trucks with 88s and the Col at the end. A Russian ary strike was called in on the nasty looking guns, and promply took out trucks, guns and Col with a roll of 2. Following morale checks to see if other leaders were affected demonstrated that they probably didnt even know the Col was in there. In retaliation, though, the StuGs Killed 3 steps of T-34s, eliminating the 4th step when it failed a morale check in a later shot before it could lose it's demoralization status. Not bad shooting! The cheering didnt last long as a stack of 3 SMG RKKA troops, having been dropped off earlier as the T-34s went through, came down off the central hill (they had succeeded in kicking off the German defence earlier) and assaulted the halftrack, eliminating it and chasing the LT into the hex with the StuGs. StugGs and Russian troops exchanged shots for a turn or two until a stack of ATR, Inf and HMG assaulted with a good quality CPT. The StuGs were destroyed over the course of 2 turns, losing 1 step each on each turn, and again leaving the German LT chased out of the hex. In the north, it seemed like the Russians would not take the town until the Major messed up and took his troops out to assault the last of the Russian T-34s. German arty had helped keep Russian infantry at bay, along with accurate DF from the town, but those pesky tanks were just waiting for a chance to enter the town and assault, so the Germans thought they would take the initiative. Bad move. They got bogged down trading blows with the tanks, killing 2 steps but never managing to kill the other platoon before more Russian troops moved in to assault and take the town from one HMG platoon with no leader. The game was a blood bath, Russians with 38 steps lost to Germans with 28 lost, but the Russians had taken all 4 of the 40m hills, had the town secure, and pushed 8 steps of armor off the board for a major victory. The few surviving German dug-in units were slowly failing and dying off, but they certainly took their toll along the way. Great game.

At 1100 on July 6, 1943, Stavka ordered a counterattack on unsupported elements of the German 106th Infantry Division of Army Detachment Kempf. The forces aligned east and west of the Shevekino-Belgorod road, with elements from the Soviet 78th Guards Rifle Division and 201st Tank Brigade east of the road. Seeing the Germans without armor or artillery support, the Soviets attacked on both flanks following an artillery barrage. However German mortar fire coupled with strafing by an Hs.129 patrol disrupted the Soviet center on the ridge east of the road. The Soviets returned heavy machine gun fire and eliminated Lt. Karsch and his infantry patrol from the north ridge. By 1115, Soviet T-34’s and T-70’s were closing on a town deep on the German left, forcing Major Scheinbahr to vacate the town and escape to a command point up on the northeast ridge. Soviet forces also made a strong push toward the German stronghold on the 40m center ridge west of the road. By 1145, Soviet forces had surrounded the central 40m ridge west of the road and were closing rapidly, but Captain Korotkov was lost in the initial stages of this skirmish. At noon, German armor in the form of two StuG IIIG’s finally arrived from the west, accompanied by Colonel Frohlich in an SK 10/4 and an 88mm battery, which set up on a 20m ridge well west of the collapsing German front line situated west of the road. All German infantry were eliminated from the town by Soviet combined armor & infantry. By 1245, both sides had lost artillery pieces, including a 120mm cannon by the Soviets and a 75mmIG gun from the Germans; this latter gun had been providing some cover for the village from an adjacent field. At 1300 hours, anti-tank fire from the StuG’s eliminated both T-34B and T-34C platoons from the village, and Soviet infantry moved in to reinforce that key objective. By 1330, the Soviets had taken control of the 40m ridge west of the road, and they now controlled all the 40m high ground in the region. However, German artillery pounded a small 40m hill east of the road, and their infantry moved in to take that section of high ground back at 1345. A determined, but demoralized group of Soviet infantry were holding out in the village, while the attention of one of the StuG’s was distracted by a T-70 scurrying westward. The battle was essentially over at 1415 with both sides significantly depleted, disrupted and demoralized. In the closing minutes, a StuG attempted to reach high ground, but was eliminated by a Soviet 76.2mm team on the western 40m hill. Meanwhile, east of the road, Soviet artillery hammered the small 40m hill, but a determined heavy machine gun platoon held fast. The remaining German Stug, with help from Colonel Frohlich and the SK 10/4, attacked the Soviet infantry in the village, but they were able to hold out. When the outcome of the battle was thoroughly assessed, this gave the Soviets a minor victory.

This scenario is really fun to play as it is well balanced (depending upon when the German reinforcements get into play), and entails a large number of units for the size of the terrain available. In the first few turns, the Soviets have a clear advantage with their tanks able to come on board in the first turn. In this case, the German armor & reinforcements didn’t enter the board until the 6th turn, a situation that allowed the Soviet forces great opportunities to advance on all fronts without much resistance. It began with German units dug in along the northern and eastern edges of the 20m hill west of the road, and the Soviet line running north to south on the hill east of the road and primed to charge across it. Both German flanks collapsed fairly quickly, and there was never any significant resistance on the German right once the dug in units were destroyed. The Germans don’t have the luxury of many units to be able to spread the line from north to south as the Soviets can. Once the town was taken by the Soviets, and the 40m hills west of the road were occupied as well, German forces were pressed onto the offensive, not allowing the Soviets time to dig in. The scenario is an extremely close one in the end. At the beginning of Turn 14, the last turn, either side could have achieved all three objectives! The Soviets held the town with a single demoralized infantry unit, had 9 of 10 steps needed for exit and a disrupted T-70 ready to move one hex off the board and achieve the 10-step level, and only needed to take a single 40m hill hex to have control of all the 40m hills. On the other side, the Germans had a StuG positioned to destroy the one-step T-70 that was ready to exit (but the Soviets won the initiative on the last turn), had significant forces ready to attack the town (but couldn’t get that last Soviet infantry destroyed or retreated), and held a single 40m hill hex, which they retained despite repeated morale checks. Had the Germans lost that hill, there were Soviet forces ready to move and take it. This one is winnable by either side, but the Germans are definitely better off if there are early fog of war rolls, and they are able to get reinforcements on Turn Three or shortly thereafter. The total step losses for each side were Soviet (41 steps lost) and German (30 steps lost); the Germans had five disrupted units left on the board, while the Soviets had 11 disrupted and 5 demoralized units still in play at the end of Turn 14.

Even with a short turn count, the Soviets nearly swamp the German position. The town was taken after a short but bitter fight and the armor pushed around the German infantry, placing itself in a position to destroy the German 88/prime mover and 1 step of Stugs upon entering the map. There weren’t enough turns to capture all the 40 meter hill hexes, but it was a resounding Soviet victory.

This is the first of the Russian counter attacks in this game, it has a large Guards INF force with both on board and off board art support, supported by a independant tank brigade attacking a smaller German force dug in on high ground. The Soviet commander has thre objectives, take the high ground, take the single hex town to the north of the hills and exit forces. The Germans went for a forward defense ensuring that the Soviets will have to fight for the middle ridge, however woth hindsight a reverse slope deployment may have been wiser. The Red Army units can in fact deploy close to the German lines and should be able to pour fire into the initial German postions. In the first stage of the battle the Red army, after putting down smoke to cover the advance on the town and grouping the HMG's together to hit the first German line, swarm over no mans land and take the first 40m ridge with relative east. The Rusian tank units postion themselves in the centre looking for the chance to exploit to the west. Things were going well for the Red Army but soon the tide tirned in a dramatic way, the Soviet Col leading from the front was killed as ws his second in command in the same turn, command then went to Major Cockupov (7-0-0), who while a good Party man was not an exparianced field commander, he took 45 mins to grasp a hold of the situation by that time German reinfocements had arrived and reinforced the centre ridge. As the Sovet attack recommnced the centre ridge was surrounded but accurate German HMG forced the Guard's to take cover. Meanwhile the T70's had been destroyed by Stug's and a German counter attack from the area around the town had even destroyed 3 T34's. There were now though serious gaps in the German line and Soviet units were exting the map, one objective achieved. Realising that the HMG's could hold the final hill but the town could fall, the German Col moved with an A/A halftrack and the last German INF unit in a desperate bid to reinforce the town, this just worked and at the end of the day a fierce battle was raging in the town, the Soviet unit had pulled back from the cente to regroup. With only one objective achieved the result was a minor win for the Wermacht. Best scenario so far from Burning Tiger's went down to the last turn, not withstanding the result I still believe this one favours the Russian, the German force had some luck towards the end of my game, at one stage the town was held by one DEM reduced unit but FOW intervened and saved the day on the turn, the Germans to reinforce the town had to leave two assault hexes but the free hits all missed. All very exciting. Warning this may be a one map scenario but it is not a quickie and will take at least one long session to complete. Worth the effort though!

The Russian/German balance was a bit skewed from the start; and the German player made no bones about mentioning that several times. But the German defenders, who were dug in and mostly up-hill from the Soviets, were able to extract their fair share of payback from the Soviets. At the end of play, the Germans had inflicted more step losses on the Soviets than vice versa (25 or so Soviet to 21 German), but it was the Soviets who could afford to absorb the losses.

The real issue for this game was that the German AT guns were knocked out by artillery almost at the start, and the big 88mm flak gun was destroyed immediately after it was deployed. The STUGs got in some good shots but the Soviet infantry was already upon them and kept them busy with assaults. This really was just a game of who had more bodies running at the other guy- and the conclusion was an inevitable Soviet win by turn 8.

Kursk: Burning Tigers, scenario 3: Kempf III: Almost

Seeing a one map scenario, I thought it would be a quick playing one but there are a lot of units and actions going on in this one map and it took a while to play out. The Soviets have about twice the force and three victory objects to go after. The Germans get some reinforcements of StuG IIIGs, 88mm, SK10/4 that are needed but they run right into a group of Soviet armor and SMG infantry, not to mention an artillery pounding, so they did little good. The Soviets conquer the one town hex after a bloodbath and easily exit 10 steps off the west edge of the map but weren’t able to control all the 40-meter hill hexes in 14 turns but achieved 2 out 3 victory objectives for a minor Soviet victory.