This game was played over Skype with Joseph (captwoosey). A unique set of circumstances set this battle up to be one of the most exciting I've ever played. Namely, these were 1/ The fact that with such a large force, Joseph was a newbie, but with each of the four sessions his play kept improving (worryingly), 2/ The German morale was quite low when required to defend such a large front and outnumbered. 3/ The person, who shall remain nameless had drawn out just 1 German leader with a morale modifier, the rest were zeroes. 4/ The scenario situation is quite an interesting one in the defence of Stettin. The situation in this game had 3 Soviet battalions having to attack 2 under-strength SS battalions composed of lads, old-men, pressed ganged recruits and probably criminal misfits too. They were low-moraled. The Soviets would have to capture villages and the main Stettin highway. They would have air-support of a very useful nature and heavy OBA support too. Glad it was a newbie in charge of the Russians otherwise I'd have written this one off from the start. But as stated, ALL these factors led to the high final rating which I bet very few others if any will do in the future. Here is the report. I make no apologies for the length of it as the action and excitement generated deserves it

Part of the line here was manned by the 18th Horst Wessel SS Volunteer Panzer Grenadier Division. This was made up of the Reich’s final scrapings of man-power, and apart from the odd experienced squad-leader it was particularly bereft of battle hardened leaders. They were assigned the difficult task of defending the length of the main Stettin highway against seriously large numbers of Soviets from the 15th Rifle Division. The SS were deployed amongst the villages in front of the highway with supporting dug-in positions on the flanks of Brussow itself. These locations gave good open fields of fire. These would prove invaluable through the battle. A large marsh area in the northern part of the line made a useful natural barrier to the expected advance locations. But apart from a few tank destroyers, the SS here had little armour and morale was low. The 15th Rifle however were now blessed with a good number of veteran officers, and if morale was not the highest, they could at least be led willingly into battle. Today, they would attempt the capture of the villages along the Stettin highway as well as invest the highway itself if possible.

At 0800 hours a loud ‘hurrah went up along the Russian line and forward surged the 15th Division with seemingly little regard for their own safety. Straight towards the SS ‘Horst Wessel’ they came. Almost immediately, the German response burst out from some of their defended positions. Long range AP fire tore through the three advancing SU platoons destroying not just them, but their tank-riding engineer passengers too thus ending their war in a heartbeat. Ordnance was mangled whilst limbered on prime-movers and mortar fire and OBA rained down on the Soviet infantrymen. German rifle and assault-rifle fire lashed fiercely against any Red Army attackers that managed to get into range. Within 30 minutes the approaches to Brussow were littered with the dead and dying from the Russias. (5 AFV steps, 7 other steps). But onwards the masses of Russia continued, straight at the SS lines, and still the under-rated defenders stood their ground and dished out an unhealthy meal of fire-power. In response, Soviet OBA, and a lot of it now started to come down on the SS troopers, but for the moment, their morale was holding against this artillery power.

By 0900 hours, Soviet casualties had risen sharply (6 AFV steps, 16 other steps) whilst German losses were a mere handful (1 step), but the fact remained that the Soviets still had plenty of men, leaders, good air-cover and OBA. Against such a fragile enemy, a breakthrough was still possible. The Germans defended by pulverizing wavering enemy units and not letting up on any enemy that showed a reluctance to go forward. 400 yards from the German lines, the Russian advance was held and these Soviets began returning fire as best they could. Although not relentlessly effective, it did, over some time start to disrupt and demoralize the low-moraled defenders. Especially effective were two air-strikes at Brussow town that caused casualties amongst the German defenders and demoralized many units. It also accounted for the death of the unit’s only veteran and effective Obersturmfuhrer meaning that their future morale would be at its most basic. The pressure was certainly now on against the SS Horst Wessel. But the Soviets were also losing leaders. In particular, at 0930 hours, the Russian regimental Colonel perished whilst leading troops that came under a bombardment in front of the northern most target village. This small cluster of buildings had attracted a large Soviet attack and its defenders, consisting of an MG platoon and Hetzers gave a good account of themselves cutting down high numbers of the enemy. Eventually, having taken casualties, the MG units had to leave in some disorder, but these were relieved by fresh grenadiers in very short order. The battle here continued to rage with the attackers still being held off at 1045 hours.

Between 0945-1045 hours, the Soviets had started to slowly inflict casualties on the Germans. An infantry gun battery in the woods flanking the aforementioned northern village had been eradicated with a combination of infantry fire and a supporting bombardment. A number of German grenadiers had now fallen too (4 steps) as well the MG troopers (1 step). But the cost had been high for the Soviets with all their armour disposed of (6 steps) and masses of soldiers cut-down (33 steps). One particular group of Soviet platoons were reduced in minutes as they cluttered together and were taken apart by AFV, infantry and artillery fire. But for all the dead and dying, the battle was still on a knife-edge. If the remaining Soviet units could hold their attack together, they might just breakthrough against an enemy with such frail morale and in very strung out dispositions?

At 1100 hours, the position on the field was as follows. To the extreme north, the one hex village was receiving probably the strongest attack on the field at this time in terms of Soviet foot soldiers that were engaging it. Also, the sheer weight of OBA delivered on the village to this point was incalculable. But the SS had held on here so far. In this village was still a Hetzer platoon but a platoon of grenadiers had replaced the MG’s. These were supported to their south by some other grenadier platoons in the nearby woods. To the middle of the Soviet battle-line there was very little going on at all. The huge swamp area cut this section off a little from the northern attack and the Red Army seemed little interested in directing resources to this lightly held sector. That said, they might have trouble getting through to it. In the south, near Brussow, there were still a large number of SS in the town including a StGIII platoon. About a third of the troops in the town were demoralized from the relentless bombardments, air and ground attacks, but there was still many willing to fight and they were holding back the much thinned out Soviet numbers. In fact, the casualties here suffered by the Soviets was what was probably stopping them sending in a severely damaging attack on the enemy.

Soviet troops had spent some time regrouping before sending in another attack on the small northern village. The Germans bombarded where they could, still exacting a few casualties on the Soviet troops, but Soviet air-power was once again to provide the most devastating results over the next half hour. In two sorties over the villages occupied by German armour, the Sturmoviks unleashed their anti-tank missiles mercilessly destroying three-quarters of the German armour and leaving the remaining step in the large southern town of Brussow utterly demoralized. Added to this, in the bitter fighting that the small northern village had been responsible for, Soviet OBA scored a direct hit on the German troops there, leaving only a demoralized half-platoon remaining. One SS Obersturnfuher 600 yards away in the neighbouring woods had heard the distinctive explosions of direct-hits on armour and had began rushing his platoon forward to reinforce the town. At the same time Russian troops, in the belief that the town was there for the taking also rushed forward. The German platoon won the race and immediately opened up on the lead Soviet platoon wiping it out completely. The battle here continued.

Back to the south and in Brussow town, that had yet to receive a real-heavy attack, the Germans were ferrying back and forth fresh troops as men became tired, disrupted and demoralised over the four hours of battle so far. The German armour here was gone too, but they still had many men albeit of low morale to try and hold the towns with. The Soviets had lost no less than 66% of their starting infantry platoons and would also be struggling to launch any heavy attack. They would now be relying on their OBA and Air Force to try and force the issue. In the meantime, both sides PBI continued to blast away at each other with variable effects.

And this was how the battle proceeded here on. Russian officers tried to gather men to make attacks, but German fire continued to hold these desperate efforts at bay albeit not eliminating as many enemy as earlier. One brave Russian sergeant kept his platoon in combat at the edge of the northern village for 90 minutes or more, but was never able to launch an attack due to heavy incoming fire. At the southern village, the Soviets continued to pressure, but never had enough from this point to drive home any kind of meaningful attack. However, the Soviets did manage to crack the German centre that was centred around some swamp land. The SS Troopers here had been fighting for well over 6 hours and their will to fight which was fragile at the start had finally broken after resisting far longer than had been expected. But the pitiful remaining Russian numbers that attempted to make an incursion here were stopped dead in their tracks when their lieutenant was forced to hit the deck under artillery bombardment and found it impossible to lead his troops forward. At 1415 hours the Soviet attack was finally petering out having sustained the severest of losses. Nonetheless, the under-strength SS battalions had suffered far more than they had wished and held on by their fingernails. But they had held their line for an unlikely victory. Casualties: German 17 steps, Soviet 50 steps