It's dawn on 10 July 1943 in western Russia, where the German II Battalion, 507th Infantry Regiment of the 292nd Infanterie Division, with support from II Battalion, 18th Panzer Regiment, 18th Panzer Division, is on the attack, looking to evict the Soviet 1019th Rifle Regiment, which has been whittled down to less than company strength! Shirokoye Bulotev itself is a bit shell-shocked, having changed hands several times, this is the sixth battle for this very ground in less than a week.

It's tough to gauge who has the advantage in this fight; the Germans are veteran troops, and though they're understrength, they still have plenty of heavy weapons, and are buttressed by a platoon of Panzer Mk IIIs. Additionally, they're commander has commandeered three armored halftracks to give his infantry some added mobility. The Soviets are worn down conscripts, vastly understrength, but they've got quite a few heavy weapons themselves, and they recently took in three T-34 refugees from the fight in Kastenwald, plus the Germans have a lot of open ground to cover in order to take the ultimate objective, the Collective Farm.

I am playing this game because I have the good fortune of being buddies with Steve of the "Sound Officer's Call" blog, and he is running a "Firestorm Ponyri" campaign. He is playing some games with his local buddies, but was unable to play all of the games himself; rather than simply 'dice off' for results of campaign fights they were unable to play on the table top, Steve asked if anyone in the blogosphere wanted to help, so here I am.

It's been a little bit of an issue that I literally just sold off a bunch of German late war gear, so I'm a bit understrength, but Steve is working with me to make sure the fights I get match up with the forces I have. This is the first fight I've played, and I hope it wasn't too much a pain for him, I certainly want to keep going! First, I love to play games; second, it's been way too long since I've played any Eastern Front games (maybe eight years or so?); and lastly, I'm a solo gamer that still craves some camaraderie, so whenever I can help another wargamer out, I'm always quick to jump at it.

Overview

Running north-south in the center of the table is a significant piece of terrain in this fight, a railway on a raised embankment, which is high enough to mask the movement of tanks. The overall objective for each side is the Collective Farm, which is at bottom right. There are patches of woods in the northwest (top left) and southwest (bottom left), which will feature prominently in the upcoming fight. There are a couple dirt roads running up to the railway embankment, the eastern of which also branches in/around the Collective Farm, though they're pretty much here for decoration as pretty much the entire map consists of crop fields, i.e., drivable terrain. I've done what I can with craters and 'rough ground' patches I'm using to try and show burnt fields in order to reflect the fact this patch of ground has seen more than its fair share of fighting.

Orders of Battle

The orders of battle for this fight:

The Germans

• Commanding Officer

• 5 x Rifle Platoon

• 1 x MG Platoon (4 x MG-42)

• 1 x Mortar Platoon (4 x 8.0cm tube)

• 1 x Infantry Gun Platoon (2 x 7.5cm howitzer)

• 1 x Anti-Tank Gun Platoon (2 x PaK-38 5.0cm ATG, with prime mover)

• 1 x Armored Carrier Platoon (3 x Sdkfz 251 halftrack)

• 1 x Truck Platoon (3 x Opel Blitz)

• 1 x Panzer Platoon (5 x Pz Mk IIIJ)

The Soviets

• Commanding Officer

• 3 x Rifle Platoon

• 1 x Machine Gun Platoon (3 x Maxim .30-cal MG)

• 1 x Mortar Platoon (3 x 82mm tube)

• 1 x Anti-Tank Rifle Platoon (3 x PTRD)

• 1 x Anti-Tank Gun Platoon (2 x 45mm ATG)

• 1 x Tank Platoon (3 x T-34/76)

Introduction

The railway embankment terrain feature essentially turns the fight for Shirokoye Bulotev into two separate fights. I actually deliberated long and hard on how best to reflect this, based on what the Soviet defense would/should look like.

The Germans are attacking from the northwest, so the patch of trees at top left will serve as both their base of fire for support elements, and their line of departure for assault elements. My initial inclination was to put the railway embankment at the far left edge of the table, and let that be the German start line, with the Germans having to skyline themselves, then cross an entire table consisting of crop fields, devoid of cover, with the Soviets dug-in at far right, even not occupying the Collective Farm (which would have been in about the same location as it is now, maybe a little further left), but prepared to counterattack it with their tank platoon, maybe even carrying a platoon of tank riders, should the German assault make it that far.

However, the Gamemaster informed me there needed to be a definite differentiation between the Veteran German force and the Conscript Soviet force. So, that made me consider not only how the German and Soviet forces would perform on the tabletop (in the event, the Germans had some real problems keeping their troops moving and getting their ample support weapons to perform effectively, despite this, and I probably let the Soviets get away with some actions that were probably a bit too crafty for beat-up conscripts), but also how they would deploy on the tabletop.

So I decided that the 'skyline the Germans with the railway embankment' defense was too tactically advantageous for the beat-up Soviet conscripts, so I put them on this table and started them with the classic rookie mistake (and one I regularly make in wargames, anyway, just look what the Germans do!) of splitting their forces, no unity of effort, no concentration. Let's take a look.

ll the Germans are in the northwest (top left), either set up and ready to support, or sitting tight, ready to advance. The Soviets are scattered across the table, trying to defend everything: the Soviet 1st Platoon is at bottom left, in the woods, with their Machine Gun Platoon and Anti-Tank Gun Platoon. The Soviet 2nd Platoon is dug in on the embankment (center) with their Anti-Tank Rifle Platoon. The Soviet 3rd Platoon is dug-in to the ruins of the Collective Farm (bottom right), and the Soviet Tank Platoon is dug-in at right/top right. That's right, another aspect of the 'conscript' classification is that the Soviets are not keeping their tanks for a mobile reserve, but are using them in static defensive positions. In their defense, the hull-down emplacements will make them very hard to detect and hit, and the German armor and infantry will have to skyline itself coming over the railway embankment, but the problems are that 1) once over, the Germans will be practically on top of them, and 2) the T-34s will not be a factor in the fighting west of the railway embankment.

I didn't get a separate picture of it, so I'll address it here: the Soviet Mortar Platoon is at bottom center, just right of the railway embankment, with their Platoon Commander sitting atop the railway embankment, acting as their forward observer.

So, the German plan, in order to make things easy for the Russkies, the Germans will split their efforts. The German 1st Rifle Company will clear the woods in the southwest (bottom left), then wheel left and push east for the objective, the Collective Farm. 1st Company has three rifle platoons: 1st Platoon is in the assault, 2nd Platoon is supporting from the wood, and 3rd Platoon is the reserve, loaded up in the halftracks. In the halftracks, yes, but not as battalion reserve, they are 1st Company's reserve; the German battalion commander knows he should probably just bypass the southwestern woods and sweep around to the north in order to reach the objective, but he is very much concerned with not leaving a Soviet force of unknown size and composition in his rear. Therefore, he has 1st Company's 3rd Platoon loaded up in the halftracks, ready to dive into the woods, and they'll be moving out on a hair trigger, he really wants those southwest woods as soon as possible. He then intends for the halftracks to double back to the woods to pick up the 1st Company's 2nd Platoon and rush them forward.

The German heavy weapons (MG Plt, Mortar Plt, and IG Plt) are all set in in the northwest woods (with 1st Company's 2nd Plt), looking to shoot in 1st Platoon's attack into the southwest woods. Once the southwest woods are secure, the MG and IG platoons will load up in the trucks and push up to the railway embankment to support the assault on the Collective Farm.

The two rifle platoons of 2nd Company and the Panzer Company will push straight east; the Germans have already spotted Soviet defensive positions atop the railway embankment, so one rifle platoon will handle those, while the other rifle platoon and the panzers will push straight over the railway embankment and look to envelop the Collective Farm from the east, isolating the objective.

The Germans don't have a reserve force to speak of; owing to 1) a necessity to press this attack home as quickly as possible, and 2) being severely understrength, all forces are committed either to the attack on the southwest woods or the railway embankment envelopment. Everybody but the German ATG Platoon, which is starting the game limbered up and will be waiting to see if and when any Soviet armor appears (the Germans are not aware of any Soviet armor in the area).

It’s Go Time!

Aftermath

So the Germans did it, they re-took Shirokoye Bulotev. In the overall scheme of things, this means all options are still open, which in turn means that the Germans can actually beat 'real life' by succeeding in this portion of the Battle of Kursk. What does that mean? Well, the last campaign turn is coming up, so stand by for more vicious, desperate fighting!

So, the game was fun, but didn't go the way I thought it would. First, it took forever; I figure the game took about four and a half hours, played out over about six and a half hours, because I had to take a couple breaks when my family was bothering me ;) But the game itself; man, part of how long the game took was just down to how bad I was rolling to get the Germans moving. The German heavy weapons couldn't seem to get anything decisive done, so their infantry was just constantly getting pinned down by Soviet mortars and machine guns, whose heavy weapons were doing a great deal of damage. So the German infantry would get roughed up, and then couldn't get moving again.

Keep in mind that the southwest woods wasn't really taken; the Soviets beat the hell out of the German 1st and 3rd Platoons, knocked out two tanks, then walked way. Hell, the German 1st and 3rd Platoons could barely get rallied after the Soviets had pulled back!!! And the German success in the center was really all down to their 2nd Platoon, 2nd Company, Platoon Commander grabbing a single rifle squad, getting lucky enough to have advanced before the Soviet mortars laid waste to the rest of his platoon and 1st Plt/2nd Co, then moving up and clearing the Soviet trenchline on the railway embankment all by themselves!

With the German 1st Company pinned down outside the southwest woods and the 2nd Company pinned down pretty much on their start line, I was having serious doubts as to whether the German assault was going to succeed, and it was really the weakness of the Soviet deployment that did them in. If the Soviets could have gotten anything, anything into the southwest woods to bolster their defense their, they'd have almost certainly won. I seriously pondered having the Soviet 3rd Platoon leave the Collective Farm, cross the railway, and reinforce the southwest wood. But being conscript, I figured that would probably be beyond what you could expect of them, and in game terms, they were only foot mobile, so they probably would have never made it in time, even if I'd have re-grouped the PC and last squad of 1st Platoon with the last MG team and the CO and had them make a final stand. And even if they had, I think at that point the Germans re-focus their effort: with the objective (the Collective Farm) now abandoned and with increased enemy activity observed in the southwest woods, the Germans pull back the 1st and 3rd Platoons of 1st Company and use them (with heavy weapons, as necessary) to contain the Soviet force in the southwest woods, then have 2nd Plt/1st Co load in halftracks and move to support 2nd Co, along with the Panzer and ATG Platoons to make the attack via a left hook. The Soviet tank platoon would have been the only thing left on the east side of the embankment, and you saw how well they did, so you figure it would have been a cake walk for the Germans to get to the objective and leave the Soviet forces in the southwest woods to wither and die.

And that's what it really all came down to for the Soviets: the lack of a reserve (much less a mobile reserve), the inability of the Soviets to get a reserve where they needed it because of the 'segregated battlefield' owing to the railway embankment (even if they had one), and the extra poor showing of the Soviet tank platoon. I don't feel bad about having the Soviet tanks dig-in; it was a conscript force, and digging tanks in for the defense was done in real life, but damn, I was expecting the Soviet tankers to do a bit better than losing three dug-in tanks and only killing one panzer in the open. In the narrative I put that the climax was German Halftrack PC running into the Soviet 1st Platoon PC, but that was really more of the breakaway point. The climax was the German tanks and ATGs getting up on the railway embankment to shoot it out with the dug-in Soviet tanks, but that turned into an anti-climactic stalemate, so the real climax was when the Germans flushed out T-34 #2 with 1st Plt, 2nd Co, and charged their tanks down the embankment into point-blank range. That was the action that decided the game; if the Soviet armor was destroyed they wouldn't have been able to hold the Germans off of the objective, and the German armor was destroyed (and assuming the Soviet mortars finally knock out the German ATGs), the Germans don't have the wherewithal to get over the railway embankment and take the Collective Farm while subjected to HE fire from those tanks. And if you're thinking, "just smoke them," I'm pretty sure the Soviet tanks would have come out of their positions to deliver HE and MG fire on any German infantry advancing without anti-tank weapons. And I can't really see German infantry taking the T-34s out, there just wasn't enough cover (the only thing saving the German 1st Plt/2nd Co was that the Soviet tanks had to deal with the German tanks and ATGs).

But the halftrack/Soviet riflemen matchup sure was fun! ;)

Just Jack