I have played this scenario more than once in my life, but only this playing is my recorded games. I had kept a log of all my games in some note books, but one of them disappeared before I switched to a digital format. This scenario is a golden oldie from 1996 that has seen a lot of tournament action. ROAR shows 172 Soviet wins to 133 German wins with an average recommendation of 7.8 . The entire Windy City Wargamers scenario pack can be downloaded from Desperation Morale.

The designer is Scott Holst. Scott has been a prolific designer for a long time. According to the scenario archive, he has designed 63 published scenarios, both for official and for third-party publications.

The scenario is set in Latvia during the month of August 1944. Army Group North was cut off from its neighbouring army group and sent an ad hoc panzer group to restore the connection. SS Panzer Brigade Gross must take stone buildings from the Soviets without hitting a CVP cap of thirty.

The Germans have one Tiger-1 tank, two Pz4H tanks, two Puma armoured cars, nine 658 squads, two 348 HS, some MG, a DC and an armour leader. The Germans also have one OBA fire mission of 280mm without an observer; the module comes with a Pre-Registered hex. This represents support from the cruiser Prince Eugen. The Germans enter from the bottom of the map. The Soviet defenders have eleven squads, mostly 458, seven concealment counters, several types of support weapons and a 45LL anti-tank gun. They are reinforced on turn one by an SU-85 and three T34/76 with an armour leader.

By SSR, all orchards are shellholes; thank goodness for terrain transformations in VASL. The map also has overlays B3 and Wd2.

Here is the Soviet setup.

Here is how it looked for the German player.

The Germans (me) chose 4U3 as the Pre-Registered hex for the OBA mission. It appears that my plan was to push up the German left side and then veer to the right. The terrain is less open. Taking the right would also give the Soviet reinforcing armour the opportunity to take hull down positions behind a wall. Here is the German setup.

The OBA on turn one eliminated two concealed stacks. I put the armour leader in the Tiger tank; big surprise. I found out later that I had eliminated an elite squad and a first-line squad. Here is the situation after German turn one.

The Germans continued to push forward with a slant to the right. They were able to break the nearest Soviet infantry. The Tiger parked in front of a T34. The T34 didn’t leave and died soon after, but the crew survived. A T34 moved to the flank of the German attack. A Puma in its sights made a successful motion attempt to change direction and move out of the LOS of the T34. The SU-85 ran out of HE ammo early. In German turn three, the Germans took two Soviet squads as prisoners. After three German turns, they had taken three stone buildings.

I took a chance and parked an armoured car hull down next to a Soviet ATR. HD didn’t save it. Soon after, I found out that the Soviet ATG was on the south edge of the board and had a view to the side of the Tiger tank. The gun has a TK of 11; range bonus made it to 12. The gun pointed at the side of the hull and the rear of the turret; AF of 8. The Tiger had a hedge and a hindrance protecting it, but it is large. The gun hit the hull, failed to kill the tank, but kept rate. The second shot hit the hull again and rolled low enough to burn the Tiger. The Soviet HMG with the 9-1 made an appearance but was ineffective. A T34 moved behind the German attack to threaten a Pz4. The Pz4 pivoted its turret to fire and malfunctioned its MA.

The Pz4 threatened by the AT gun fired smoke to protect itself. On the German right, an SS squad went berserk, runs toward the ATR and tank and then died. The German sniper took revenge by breaking the ATR squad. A squad with a DC tried to attack the west T34, but it became pinned. That same T34 missed the Pz4 with the Malfunctioned MA when the Pz4 left the T34’s LOS. Soon after, that T34 took a point blank IF MA shot at the pinned squad next to it; rolled a twelve to become Recalled. The Soviet defensive fire was ineffective.

The Soviet AT gun rolled a critical dud against the Pz4 in its sights. The gun used IF to hit again, but did not penetrate. That was followed by a wholly ineffective prep fire phase. German return fire was more effective, forcing some units to rout.

Next it is the German’s turn to have an ineffective prep fire phase. Not everyone fires, however. With the help of a smoke discharger, the Pz4 in front of the AT guns escapes, but heading away from the action. Soviet dice rolls continue to be high. A German PF destroyed the SU-85 by opportunity fire. The Germans advanced a HS next to the Soviet rally area. Following another ineffective Soviet prep fire phase in their turn five, the Soviet player conceded. The Soviets were at the point of needing to retake stone buildings and he believed they did not have the assets to do so.

I must say that my victory was helped by mostly bad Soviet dice rolling for a lot of the match.