This is a smaller size scenario with two maps and 16 turns. The Soviets are the defender with a smaller mixed force of: armor, infantry and support weapons which include a 76.2mm Gun & BM-13 Rocket Truck unit, and must defend the town hexes on map 37. The Germans are the attacker with a similar makeup of units but a stronger armor force, which includes: a Tiger unit and Infantry that can shot farther than one hex unlike the Soviet SMG which only have a range of one hex. Both sides have off-artillery and air-support.

This battle started with the Germans moving forward with a spotting unit or two, alongside their armor, as it had range on the Soviet armor. This is the first time I got to fire Grant tanks in Soviet colors, I have used them before in the PG series but in the British colors, either way pretty cool even if they are not a very strong unit, they sure beat the Soviet T-70’s which weren’t in this scenario. Both sides engaged in the armor battle and the Soviets were pretty much knockout as an armored battle-group but they did give the Germans some problems for 5-6 turns and took out a small dent of Germans armor.

Phase two of the battle has the Germans infantry and armor moving up adjacent to the town hexes of map 37 after firing a few rounds of off-board artillery in there and many rounds of direct fire. The Soviet Infantry now took a beating and in the end were ejected from the town and any surrounding hexes, at least 4-5 hexes away. The Soviets were able to inflict enough step losses to meet their minor victory conditions but the German met both of their victory conditions for a Major German Victory. End result, German Victory!

This is another fun scenario to play, as both sides have somewhat different victory conditions and time is not on the Germans side, so they must hurry and take a few more risks, which give the Soviets a chance as well. Good stuff!

Solo game, I defended forward with a dug in line of a few Russian SMGs, in order to push back the German setup a few hexes. This is a debatable ploy...arguably not worth it, although I only ended up losing two steps in the retreat to the town.

The game was fairly tense for the first 6 turns as the Germans cautiously moved forward and let their firepower force the action. I kept Russian tanks at a safe distance mostly, with a few dug-in blockers. The various back and forth firing ended up taking down 7 German steps (but 10 was needed for a Russian minor).

The Germans closed in on the town and it looked like a potential bloodbath and a very difficult assault, but as time wore on any Soviet unit that wasn't infantry got Xed or routed and the Germans were able to launch massive 24 and 30 FP assaults (with Engineer support) into the town hexes (once the AT guns are gone, the German halftracks can really boost an assault stack).

After only 2 turns of assaults the Germans cleared the town by turn 12 and the rest of the Russian force (not much) melted away quickly. I played out the last 4 turns simply hoping for Russian air attacks to inflict step losses (that didn't work).

I'm not sure about balance here...16 turns didn't seem like much and the Russians have a ton of stuff. They can try strategies I didn't (my play was probably average at best). On the other hand, the Germans won it pretty easily in essentially 12 turns of cautious moving, firing and assaulting. So to be fair I'd rate it pro-German right now, but not horribly so. The Russians have a ton of stuff to play with so as the defenders they will have an impact on the outcome.

This was a fun little scenario, a real thinker.

Early demoralizations, in part, cost me this game- in the third or fourth turn, i threw two elevens in a row during a simple morale check, and consequently my machine gun and one of the infantry saw little action, and I had to continually re-arrange the positioning of my officers to get my guys recovered. Then i blundered when faced with the choice of getting a tank out of an assault or initiating other assaults. I went on the offensive, and lost the tank. I took the town easily, but couldn't clear out the field.

I definitely felt the pinch that they talked about in the scenario description- I had motorcycles, sure, but they don't give the column shift for mixed arms assault.

Playing against my friend who is new to the system. He elected to play the Russians for this one.

The Soviet force deployed imfantry mostly in the town, with the artillery and rockets forward and tanks in reserve to the rear. My Germans began with mortars on the hill with the combined arms force ahead to its rear, with a steong line of tanks on line with the hill.

The battle began with an artillery duel between the OBA, mortars, and the Russian rocket detachment. The bombardment was inconclusive, so the Germans decided to move their panzers forward. In a short amount of time, the soviet artillery was destroyed by the advancing panzers. The Soviets followed up with a counterattack on the eastern side. There was a good exchange of casualties amongst the panzers and Soviet Grants, but this only allowed the combined arms force of infantry, motorcycles, and panzergrenadiers to advance on the town.

By the time the Soviet tank attack had fully committed, the casualties had already gone in favor of the Germans. This allowed the Panzers to,divide their forces betweem holding off the remaining tanks, and isolating the town. From there it was a slog through the streets of Malye Maiachki. The firepower of the German troops was decisive, and combined with successful isolation of the town, all resistance was eliminated or driven back by 0800.

The report made to the 242nd Tank Brigade was clear: Utilize tanks as a cohesive force at a decisive point, and do not deploy your artillery in the front line.