Having really enjoyed the recent "24 Hours to Basildon" PSC Gary and I decided to start another campaign. Looking through those available we went for the "Many Rivers to Cross" which was included in the 2018 Lard Mag.
The campaign is written with the intention of being set in France/Belgium with the Germans attacking in 1940. However, it is quite generic and easily adapted to other periods so we went for my Soviets as the attacker against Gary's Germans in 1941. The only real change we had to make was that the German 'Stuka Bombardment' would be replaced by the Russian 'Sturmovik Bombardment'!
The campaign opens on Map Two with the Soviets having to establish themselves across a river and push forwards to the next river line. The scenario is 'Hasty Defence' from the Blitzkrieg 1940 Handbook with the only restriction being that the Soviets in the first two games can only select man-portable support weapons.
With a mighty (and indeed maximum) 18 support points I chose two MMG's (6), 4 entrenchments (4), a bombardment (2), an AT rifle (2) and an extra squad (4). I wasn't sure if Gary would choose a tank or not, if he did it could be tricky but it would use up most of his support points!
We adapted the terrain from the map slightly, one thing that is noticeable is that the buildings are far less useful for defence than European style buildings, they have few windows and doors and should probably be considered only soft cover in some cases:
The Soviets begin by deploying a MMG and the extra support squad (represented by Partisan figures in this case as providing five 13 man squads of Russian infantry was beyond me!) all deployed in entrenchments:
No response from the Germans and an opportune double phase results in Leytenant Kravstov joining the Partisans and leading them forward in a rush to capture a German JOP before the Fascist scum have time to react:
The men dash forward an impressive 14" initially:
In their second move though they don't quite get far enough and fail to shut down the JOP. This could be tricky! The Leytenant has left them to bring up support which they will probably be needing:
The Germans appear and open fire! Being in the open and at short range the fire is destructive with four Partisans going down and their leader, Sgt Davidov, being wounded:
The Germans had a double phase and fire again taking a further three Partisans out. The large squad size really helps though and despite being seven men down the Partisans are still in action!:
The Germans have deployed a second squad in the forest which opens up on the Soviet MMG. few of them have a sight line though and the fire is ineffective. Return fire sees the first German casualty of the encounter:
The Partisans finally get a chance to fire back and take down another German:
Return fire however kills Sgt Davidov and leaves only three Partisans alive. Remarkably they stubbornly refuse to break but do become pinned:
Enraged by the continual resistance of the Partisans the Germans deploy another squad to close assault them! The Partisans are wiped out but take one German with them:
Meanwhile Leytenant Kravtsov has brought up an infantry section to support the MMG and both have been exchanging fire with the Germans in the forest:
This has gone badly for the Germans with their LMG team being wiped out and the Feldwebel killed:
Next the Soviets bring on the second MMG, again in entrenchments, to put more pressure on the Germans in the forest:
At this point with a small force morale advantage (6 to 5) the Germans decided to withdraw. The opening game was quite tricky for both of us, if I lost the campaign could almost be over before it started while for Gary if he lost too many men he would struggle.
While Gary had inflicted a lot more losses on me his position wasn't great, the two squads he used to take out the resilient Partisans were largely out of the battle, his squad in the forest was under a lot of pressure and he only had one remaining squad to deploy. The Soviets still had three of their huge squads to deploy and could quickly change the axis of attack so it was probably a sensible decision to withdraw at that point.
The final bill was 13 casualties for the Soviets, all from the support squad so no losses for the next game. The Germans lost 6 men, one of whom returned due to the difference in FM. The next game is "Farm and Forest" with the Soviets attempting to press on.
I must admit that it was nice to have the same number of command dice as Gary after my struggles with the four dice against six Home Guard and it is always fun to play with the much more aggressive Soviets!
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