On March 28th, more of the Rochester Group decided to head over to Deaf Ear Records for the weekly Flames of War game. Prior we’d coordinated a 1910 point LW game. With some of the folks from Rochester being fairly new to Flames of War we decided to split into two tables. Chuck from La Crosse and Chuck from Rochester against me on one table and then Eric from the Rochester Group vs Bill from LaCrosse on the other.
On the far table Eric was going to be German and Bill playing a Russian force that Chuck from LaCrosse supplied. The closer table would be my battleground. Already it looked like a tough table with that river down the middle. Either a crossing action or the potential of having to split force to attack or defend. Tough choices ahead!
With the mission we ended up with me as the defender and the Russians attacking. It’s nice to have the length of the table to defend and give ground OTOH flowing forces back and forth wasn’t going to be an easy option. I’d need to start with just 2 platoons on table. Thankfully my company HQ was two Panthers.
I decided to start with a platoon of Jagdpanthers on ambush and then my artillery of 4 105s start on table. Not much but probably good enough for 3 turns and with air available I was hoping to dull the pain. My reserves would be entering from a long table edge so there was motivation from the part of the Russians to not complete stick their heads in it and suffer a flank attack.
With the deployment of all Russian forces, they put a platoon of T34s on my left flank backed by a straight legs. Over on my right flank on the opposite side of the river SU152s and JS2 line up with artillery in the back.
With Turn one the Russians flowed forward. On the bottom of turn one I sprung my ambush and called for air. With the fields of fire and the open terrain the T34s would get the most initial love and then I’d work my way over. I figured by turn 2 I’d probably be shooting across the table with maybe a few flank shots before I’d have to retreat back due to Russian infantry.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Luck was with me, hitting the T34s hard and they failed their motivation and decide they have better things to do. Likewise two brew ups in the middle, now it’s down to infantry on one flank and Russian tanks on the other.
Through turn 2, the Russian horde moved forward and I tried to keep them down with artillery and MG fire. While it landed it wasn’t quite enough to keep them from surging forward.
My air however couldn’t be protected from! Alas my bombs were fairly ineffective but these tankers were definitely slowing down a bit so as to maximize use of cover so as to not give me opportunities from the far hill. Likewise some of the AA assets protecting the artillery started to move forward to protect the tanks instead.
With turn 3 the advance continued. Hard luck on my part because I needed to keep on the objective to stave off a quick loss. With the bottom of turn 3 I really really needed reserves and quick. Unsurprisingly the Russians infantry close assaulted the Jagdpanthers. Luck just wasn’t with me having to fall back and unfortunately not being able to fall back far enough lead to two Jagdpanthers being destroyed. The platoon would make their motivation roll. At this point I was forced off the objective and there wasn’t much I could do without reinforcements.
With the bottom of turn 3, I made my roll and selected my Panzergrens in their half tracks. Time for a desperation close assault to push them off or at least get to a point where the objective was contested.
I came on with dismounted infantry. I shouldn’t have in retrospect. On the assault I took enough defensive fire that I couldn’t press home and that was that. No way to press the Russians off the objective.
Considering there just was no way the position was able to be held. All in All I think a historical type result with the Germans conceding the day to fall back and look for a counter attack.