Rommel Mid War Soviets v Germans

The first outing for the 10 mm Mid War Soviet army found them taking on Andy's Germans in the "Breakthrough" scenario. With the Soviets attacking I was able to use pretty much all of my force so had massed artillery, numerous tanks and a load of infantry.

The table was fairly open with Andy only having 12 terrain choices. To win the Soviets needed to capture two out of four German held objectives and hold their own objective:

Looking at the objectives and the German deployment the Soviets decided to attack the German objectives on their right and centre. Both were in open ground. The first difference in the way the Soviets operate quickly became apparent, almost all the Soviet artillery can only be used in the first Soviet tactical phase, as they couldn't contact the Germans in the first phase the mighty Soviet artillery stayed silent:

Soviet armour and motorised infantry mass around the objective on the right:

The Soviet infantry attack the centre objective supported by massed artillery:

The Germans are heavily outnumbered on the right and are taking losses as are the Soviets, the Soviets are hoping their numbers will prove decisive:

The Germans counter-attack an isolated T-34 brigade:

German forces are weakening in savage fighting:

The Soviet infantry have almost taken the centre objective using massed attacks supported by artillery:

Soviet armour surges around the objective on the right, the Germans are very weak now and only just holding on:

The centre objective is about to fall to the Soviet infantry:

The objective falls! The Germans have little to counter attack with while the Soviets still have an uncommitted Motor Rifle division in reserve:

The right hand objective also falls to the Soviets. Again the Germans have little left to counter with though, while there are a lot of Soviet elements in the area, most of them are badly damaged:

On the right a German counter attack retakes the objective:

The Soviets respond with an so far uncommitted Tank Brigade:

In the centre the Soviets are firmly in control and are mopping up the surviving Germans:

The right hand objective is taken for the second time. The Germans have nothing left and retire from the field:

The battle ended around turn 12 so well before nightfall. After some initial great combat dice for the Soviets and corresponding poor combat dice for the Germans the outcome never really looked in doubt.

The Soviets certainly play differently to the Allies or Germans, while their armour is rated Green compared to the Veteran Germans and the Soviet armour is rated lower than the German armour sheer numbers and the huge artillery support results in the Soviets both taking and inflicting heavy losses.

The fact that the artillery support is only available in the first Soviet tactical phase does limit what they can do and, I think, results in the Soviets attempting a few decisive attacks in a single tactical phase rather than the Allied or German method of using multiple tactical phases each turn.

On reflection I think the Germans would have been better off not contesting the objective on the right and forming a shorter line holding the other three objectives with more terrain to defend from.

The other option Andy considered was a much more aggressive counter-attacking defence taking advantage of the fact that the Soviets can't use their artillery defensively. It's an interesting idea especially as we have both become much more 'defensive' when defending in our Rommel games and might make more use of the German's quality and ability to use multiple tactical phases.

Next time we will play an historical scenario so I'll be waving goodbye to the massive Soviet artillery park!