Turn 1:
Turn 2:
the germans were waiting for their engineers to come up to clear some mine fields to facilitate a rapid assault on the Soviets to the west. they failed 2 ordered movement rolls and an unordered movement roll. The artillery right in front of them must have spooked them.
Photo 3:
close up of the soviet village "Yachmyenyi". I printed off a screen shot from Google Maps of an unidentified Ukrainian town/village at 1" = 200' then cut out the template size I wanted on the board. I stick my terrain print outs down with fun tack. I placed a few of my Soviet cottages on top and Viola, one tough nut to crack. The white markers on the board are my Soviet mine fields. I will reprint them with a khaki background and reapply them to the cardboard bases these are stuck too. The white is just too obnoxious looking.
Turn 4:
This image is from the Soviet side of the board, so backwards from the turn 2 image. The constant direct fire of Soviet artillery and ant-tank guns is suppressing the StuG Batttalion but otherwise having little effect. The Fusilier battalion is slowly marching up the road. The Germans called in a massive barrage on the Soviet ATG battery on the west and eliminated it.
Turn 5:
this photo is from the german side again and was taken at the very end of the turn.
The Soviet forces on the west side have a few holes in their line now which the germans are going to try to exploit. The Stu'G's drove into the minefields to find the dummies and work their way into and behind the Soviet lines. If we'd had more time I wouldn't have rushed this attack like this. The germans should wait a few more turns and let their arty continue to soften up this position.
this game isn't very fun. it's really an exercise (Ubung, or Etude), not a game. I know how to attack a fortified position pretty well with these rules and was sharing some of what I know with some new players. If it had been a game I wouldn't have played both sides and I wouldn't have deployed the germans before the new guys showed up. This allowed them to make fewer mistakes and possibly not learn as much. I won't be so nice next time.
This scenario is really boring for the Soviet side as written, he gets no reinforcements and really has no mobility. If I don't add a mobile unit as a reinforcement I will give them more and probably heavier artillery. A couple more 76mm ATG's, to make the Stug's be a little more on their toes, would pick things up too.
I need to know more about the Soviet artillery doctrine in WWII. I want to look into 'preplotted' artillery for the soviet union. I know they did this to a certain extent at Kursk, to basically protect their anti-tank strong points from attacks. But using the optional 'National' artillery efficiency rule makes using Soviet indirect artillery fire almost pointless and impossible. If each battery got a pre-plotted (before the game begins) fire mission the FO's could call up with one turns notice it would make their arty more effective defensively. And I guess that's why they developed the SU 122 and 152, they just didn't have effective indirect artillery and had to 'mobilize' it. But defensively I think they did have pre plotted fire missions, I just have to research this more.
anyway, have fun gaming and collecting microarmour!
Red Leif
So please give us some hints, please.