Yong Park
SCENARIO:
State Farm 79 – Complexity 4
MISSION:
Penetrate State Farm 79 and disrupt Army Detachment Hollidt thus stopping XXXXVIII Panzer Corp from launching a strike to relieve beleaguered German Sixth Army in Stalingrad.
DATE:
December 8, 1942 – 14 turns
LOCATION:
State Farm 79 - 100 km West of Stalingrad
FORCES:
Elements of the 97th Guard Tank Brigades: 6 plt T-34 M41, 9 plt T-34 M43, 3 plt KV-1 M42, and a small mixture of infantry supports and 122mm Howitzer. 4 smoke screens were allocated for this mission but no air support due to snow.
REINF: None
ENEMY:
209th Motorized Engineer Battalion with various 35 mm and 88mm AT guns. 15th Panzer Regiment showed up as reinforcements.
CONDITION:
Major Win 1000
Minor Win 500
Minor Loss 200
Major Loss -100
TERRAIN:
Small hills are located around the edges of the map with rolling hills in the center. Other then that, the terrain is mostly flat with numerous trees and forests are littered all around the map. State Farm 79 is the only town in this map with 12 – 100 VP hexes located in and around the town. There are 4 unpaved roads going into the town: two from east and one each from north and south. There is a small unnamed town east of State Farm 79. There is a hill due east of this unnamed town and a forest due north. All other approaches to town are flat and open.
To start the game, all of the VP hexes are under German control. All German units are located in and around SF 79. The Russian forces are heading from east and northeast toward the town. The visibility is OK even though there is light snow falling.
OPPONENT:
Jason Petho
Russians Move First
There are two separate Russian forces in the map. I moved all my tanks toward State Farm 79 from both northeast and east. Since I know that there are many 88mm AA guns in and around the town, my tanks advanced behind the woods and hills to get 88 mm AA into the firing ranges of T-34s and KV-1s. All my infantry units were dismounted before the opening at the end of the arrow. All of the victory hexes were occupied by German Engineers. Therefore, all my tanks stopped short of those units and fired at a long range. One danger was that 88mm AA were firing at the long range, too. They inflicted some heavy damage to T-34s. One obvious positive was that 88mm AA could not be moved quickly thus KV-1s and T-34s were able to concentrate on those beasts.
My tactic was to concentrate one victory hex at a time. The eastern most victory hex was easy to capture since it was defended by only a MG platoon. This unit was quickly captured by assaulting infantry trailing T-34 M41 from northeast.
I used same tactic for two 100 hexes south of the first captured victory hex. These two were little more problematic because of 88mm AA just next to these hexes. All KV-1 fires were directed at this 88mm AA to either destroy them or disrupt them. Once all the units in the Hexes with 88 mm AA were disrupted, I assault them with faster moving T-34 M43 to dislodge them from the Hex and destroying 88 mm AAs.
Slowly but surely, each victory Hex was captured by Russian tanks without much difficulty using the same method. By turn 8, it was obvious to both sides that Germans were defeated. Without any reinforcement arriving and no mobile forces, Jason surrendered.
RESULTS
Allies Major Victory
LESSONS:
1. KV-1 tanks can take a lot of punishments. Use them for most important assaults.
2. BM 13-16 Rocket Launchers are extremely effective against fixed infantry units!
3. Do not try to engage Panzergrenadiers with Russian infantry alone.
CONCLUSION:
This scenario is not balanced. It is too easy for the Russians. Only way for the Germans to win is to have mobile AT units. However, all AT guns were not mobile. The German reinforcements come way too late to be any use.
Jason Petho is usually a tough competitor, but I cannot judge him from this scenario. I am not sure if there is any way for the Germans to win unless the Russian commander decides to split the forces.