After the big game with scenario 11, this super small one was just the ticket for a evening. A small game, 14 turns and a handful of counters, but lots of fun. Why? SSR's for visibility, snow and victory conditions make it worthwhile. You will need to think about the attack and the defense and watch out that you don't get spotted too early. You only have a few counters and all matter.

For counters there are some T34's and Panzers, BM-13's and armored cars, and infantry and OBA too. Morale is even and just 2 leaders each side the "flip" is important. Germans get good leaders with bonus while the Soviets do not.

Victory conditions are town control and maximize enemy casualties. The Soviets are a nominal attacker and the Germans are defending. The Germans get the setup and position for their units in the town with Soviets opting for the woods north of town.

The Soviets move first the Soviet LT moves to the woods edge to try and spot for the OBA and BM-13's. The Germans spot this advance and blast him with OBA, disrupting him. The Soviet LT still spots an INF and halftrack and calls in OBA. It hits the him for a demoralization on the INF. The German lets the Soviet continue to push for the town. The T-34 emerges from the woods looking to take on the PzIIIf and Sdkfz-222 given its advantage.

The German tanks know to stay back from the T34 and try to position back into the town so that the Soviets will need to bring up the T60's to try to crossfire. The Soviet doesn't bit and just move his SMG's up to the woods edge.

The next turn brings Soviet OBA on the INF and the Germans countering on the Soviet LT with no effect on both. The Soviet SMG's move to attack the demoralize INF while the halftrack try to OP fire and disrupts one SMG. The German continues to let the Soviets advance and the T34 take up position on the pesky halftrack. The Germans are pinched and he has too commit the other INF to somehow get close to the T34. It moves to the town edge and waits to move up. The Germans continue to await the attack but the Soviets have had enough for this turn.

The next visibility gives a break to the Germans and the T34 cannot see the halftrack, but Soviet OBA hits the disrupted INF (recovered in prior turn) and hits the INF again and demoralizes it, but friendly fire hits the SMG's looking to assault. Morale checks are passed and they look to finish off the German INF, but there point blank fire misses. The German tanks look to reposition back to the east edge of town. This gives the T60s a chance to move up and threaten the west edge of the town. German OBA hit the SMG's and demoralize both of them. A few more activations end the turn.

The game is full into action with demoralized and disrupted units but no kills yet. That changes in this turn. First the Soviet OBA hits the demoralized INF, reducing them, but friendly fire hits the SMGs again and this time reduced one due to demoralization. The Germans look to recover the demoralize reduced INF, they fail and move back but the Soviet T34 see's an easy kill with the halftrack. It kills it and wishes it was one hex closer to the PZIIIF. The PzIIIF move back to the west of town and looks to attack the T60's. Seeing this they move back and the Germans hit the the SMG's with OBA, resulting in a step loss and the reduced unit goes. The other demoralized SMG survives. A second SMG group moves up with the Captain to the west of the town ready to assault the PzIIIF, the Sdkfz-222 moves to support a defense.

The next turn has the SMG's going after the German tanks. It is an even assault and both sides score morale checks and the Soviets with them staying in good order and the tanks disrupting. German OBA comes down on the assault disrupting the Soviet SMGs. The T34 and the T60's move to position to fire on the assaulted tanks. The Germans move the other halftrack into defend the assaulted hex with the Soviets try to recover the other SMG.

The next turn was key and the Germans with the initiative. The German OBA comes down on the assault hex and score a step loss. The remnants disrupt, but the Soviet Captain is mortally wounded, crippling the attack. But the Soviets fire the T34 at the PzIIIF, totally destroying it. The Germans take a gamble and move the halftrack and Sdkfz-222 out of the assault and the free fire misses. The Soviets get one town hex.

The next turn the Soviet infantry tries to recover but fails and is hit by German OBA, demoralizing them. The Soviet T34 moves closer to the town to try to support the demoralized INF. The other German INF moves to assault the T34 but is hit by T60 OP fire, but they pass there morale check. Recovers are attempted but fail.

Closing on the end of the game the Soviets have one town hex but have lost most of their SMG's and a key leader. The Germans have lost their armor but still have infantry. Soviet OBA fire into the town without effect. The T34 moves to the one town hex to support the infantry and try to get another, but they will not get the whole town. The Germans hold the town but cannot get enough Soviets killed. In the end a draw.

In the end the slow movement and visiblity made it hard for the Soviets to use their advantage in armor and made it harder to get there SMG's in postion. With the Germans controlling the town they could shift their forces quickly to respond to the Soviet attacks.

Tank Battles: 24 - Operation MARS #12: Shanaurin's Drive I: Chicherinka

I found my notes for this scenario I played years ago, so I am just now recording it. It is kind of a small maneuver scenario that I got very lucky with, winning as the Germans. I will have to try this one again, as on paper it favors the Soviets but it’s a very quick play, so it’s fun to setup and play a scenario in 30 minutes.

I will try this one again, as 2003 was a long time ago!

I needed to try this scenario again, as in 2003 I had a Major German Victory but this time around I had a Minor Soviet Victory. Neither side controlled all the town hexes but the Soviets lost 6 steps and the Germans lost 10 steps and as per the victory conditions, the Soviets receive a Minor victory and the Germans fell one step short of achieving a minor victory.

There is nothing really special about this scenario but the make-up of forces is kind interesting and because it’s only 14 turn with 20 units total not counting leaders, you can set this up and play it pretty fast. It’s kind of fun to try different approaches or strategies. Visibility, snow movement and off-board artillery can factor into this battle as well. Certainly worth a play or two.

Author	treadasaurusrex (Soviet Union)
Method	VASSAL
Victor	Soviet Union
Participants	Tankodactyl
Play Date	2023-01-21
Language	English
Scenario	TaBa024

This was a 2-session, online, play-through with a fellow Armor type who clearly understands maneuver warfare, but is relatively new to PG. Tankodactyl resolutely played the defending German recon element commander, and I had the attacking Red Army combined arms task force in this "immediate action drill" of a scenario. Setup was almost adjacent to each other, and the German side was made up of comparatively fragile SPW, early war Pz-III tanks, and some armored car units.

The Germans player would be lucky to get a knife-edge draw out of this merciless shoo t'em up. We used the glorious extended assault, smoke/illum and excess initiative optional rules in this one - and skipped the FOW. This time, neither of us were doing penance and both had tanks in our ranks! It was a refreshing change of pace for me and this was a fun-filled encounter, with flawed victory conditions that was not properly play tested. In spite of another batch of crummy leaders drawn, the Soviets shot the daylights out of the near-hapless, Germans in this outing. The Axis only needed to eliminate 7 steps in this one and they only managed to destroy 5. Soviet automatic weapon fire (SMG) was predictably deadly in close range fire fights, and assaults this time. Surprisingingly, I only threw 3 combat 7-die rolls -- there Germans threw 4. The Soviets had a great time killing the scuttling SPW halftracks and the T-34 platoons had a field day eliminating brave-but-doomed, counter attacking Pz-IIIF units, while losing only a single step of light tanks. A complete Soviet triumph ensued, and it was clear by the end of game turn 5, that the ill-fated, German force was on the ropes.

As others have insightfully reported, there is only a minimal chance for the Germans to do better than a draw, even if very well-led and favored by the PG fates. I give this fast-paced, but deeply-flawed scenario, a VERY generous rating of 3. Probably this one should be a SOLO-only play. German recon units are notoriously fragile and no real match for T-34s and a fast-moving attack,

Author	triangular_cube
Method	Solo
Victor	Soviet Union
Play Date	2023-01-20
Language	English
Scenario	TaBa024

This is a short one that gets right into the action with units starting potentially adjacent to each other. A small recon force of Germans are up against a moderate combined arms Soviet force and really look to be fighting for the draw. The Germans can withdraw themselves, and head south off the board, which would result in a quick Soviet Minor Victory, and looking at the force matchup, this honestly is probably their best outcome.

I didn't as I figured they should try to achieve their required 7! step losses before fleeing. There probably is some meta decision here about only leaving enough of the force in the town to try for the 7 step losses, while fleeing off the map with the most brittle SPWs on turn 1 but I don't have a firm feeling on that.

Anyway, the Germans set out an infantry screen within the northern border of the town, and the rest file in behind and out of LOS of the BA-10ms and T34s, hoping to stay alive long enough to do something. The Soviet SMGs stack x3 with hopes to assault turn 1, while the armor sweeps west, and the BAs sweep east to contain the 222s which otherwise could strike at the Soviet motor pool (likely 4 of the 7 steps if the Germans ever win or draw this one).

Soviets win init, and assault on turn 1 causing as step loss and the German defense goes downhill from here. The tanks complete their sweep and enter the town and start dispatching the SPWs while the PZIIIfs make a suicide charge into assault to tie up the T34s while the rest fire at the SMGs while they are out of assault, having cleaned up the half step surviviing Germans on turn 2.

From here they just knock out SPWs each turn till they are gone and the Germans fold up.

No real chance for the Germans that I can see unless I'm missing some magic factor in the VCs. Recon stuff in PZG is just too brittle to get much done.