Courland Pocket Road to Berlin #45 |
||
---|---|---|
(Defender) Germany | vs | Soviet Union (Attacker) |
Formations Involved | ||
---|---|---|
Germany | 19th SS "2nd Latvian Grenadier" Division | |
Soviet Union | 379th Rifle Division |
|
Overall Rating, 1 vote |
---|
3
|
Scenario Rank: --- of 940 |
Parent Game | Road to Berlin |
---|---|
Historicity | Historical |
Date | 1945-03-13 |
Start Time | 07:30 |
Turn Count | 30 |
Visibility | Day |
Counters | 149 |
Net Morale | 0 |
Net Initiative | 1 |
Maps | 4: 15, 17, 18, 19 |
Layout Dimensions | 86 x 56 cm 34 x 22 in |
Play Bounty | 135 |
AAR Bounty | 171 |
Total Plays | 1 |
Total AARs | 1 |
Battle Types |
---|
Road Control |
Rural Assault |
Conditions |
---|
Entrenchments |
Minefields |
Off-board Artillery |
Severe Weather |
Scenario Requirements & Playability | |
---|---|
Road to Berlin | Base Game |
Introduction |
---|
When Soviet armies surged through the German lines in October, 1944 to the Baltic Sea, they trapped 400,000 soldiers of the German Army Group North in western Latvia. Adolf Hitler repeatedly refused to evacuate them to help defend Germany, and they occupied the attention of several times their number of Red Army troops (just how many is still disputed). The Soviets made numerous attempts to liquidate the "Courland Pocket," one of the most serious coming in March near the town of Saldus. |
Conclusion |
---|
The Latvian "volunteers" fought off the Soviet attacks with heavy losses, and were on the brink of collapse when the weather suddenly warmed above freezing. Heavy mud brought the Red Army to a total halt as both sides found themselves unable to move vehicles or artillery except on the regions very few paved roads. The Courland Pocket would outlast the Third Reich, only surrendering when Germany herself gave up. |
AFV Rules Pertaining to this Scenario's Order of Battle |
---|
|
5 Errata Items | |
---|---|
The movement allowance on the counters in Airborne is misprinted. It should be "3." (rerathbun
on 2012 Jan 30)
|
|
All SS 75mm IG guns are direct fire weapons (black), not indirect (white). (Shad
on 2010 Dec 15)
|
|
The reduced direct fire value of the SS HMG is 5-5 in Beyond Normandy and Road to Berlin. (plloyd1010
on 2015 Jul 31)
|
|
The reduced direct fire value in Kursk: Burning Tigers is 4-4. (plloyd1010
on 2015 Jul 31)
|
|
Kommissars never get morale or combat modifiers. Ignore misprints. (Shad
on 2010 Dec 15)
|
Mud Mud Glorious Mud | ||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
This scenario pits a Soviet strong mixed arms force against entrenched SS units.The Soviet's have to clear one of the two North South roads. They have 30 turns with good artillery support to help them carry out the mission. The downside is from Turn 11 mud appears and gets worse every five turns slowing the attack to a crawl. This game was played solo. The German set up is relatively straight forward there are two roads to defend the Germans don't know where the main thrust will be so I think the German must split his forces and fortification pretty evenly defending each road. The only question is how much of a reserve to keep hidden in the central woods. The Red Army commander has several options, assault just one road, both roads with roughly equal resources or a minor attack on one road with the majority of the force committed to a single axis of attack. In my game I went for the latter option. The games starts with the Soviet juggernaut rolling down the road and clearing up the German outposts quite easily, however when they come up to the entrenchments things get tougher, this combined with the mud and FOW rolls, which could play a large part in this games as the attack gets more dispersed, make it hard for the Soviets to win this one. The Germans though can not afford to trade losses as they have to cause double the amount of step losses to gain a victory and this too will be tough especially if the Soviet player realizes he will not clear the road and goes on the defensive and let his artillery knock off the odd German step so as to avoid defeat. In my game the major German losses came when I had to switch more units to defend the threatened road as the reinforcements had to cross open ground to be able to assist their hard pressed comrades. This is a scenario which would have to be played to the finish (losses in my game were German 30 step losses to the Soviet 56 step losses) so very hard to call as two more T34 losses would have resulted in a German win and there are enough options to keep both sides interested that said when the mud starts the game does slow down to a real slugfest which some might consider a little boring. It gets a solid 3 rating from me and I would play it again as a FtF. |
||||||||||||
0 Comments |