by Ian

I seem to be bashing my way through a whole bunch of Crucible of Steel scenarios at the moment. This one though departs from the norm of the pack. That is The Germans are on defence and just 5 foxholes are in play. I took the defence and what a nice force I get. First up lets introduce the cream of the crop. Say hello to Mr. Second Line 447! I get 7 of these with a couple of Conscripts to stiffen them up, of joy of joys. Not all is lost though as I also get a 50L ATG, 2 MMG’s 2 LMG’s an ATR and a Mtr. The 4 ? counters I get can add fake units or puff up real guys as Duncan starts from offboard. I do get 3 more 2nd’s with a LMG supported by Spencer’s best friends (StuG’s) but I have to wait till turn five for these boys to show. Facing me is 15.5 squads inc. Elite and 527′s and in one of the more rare situations better led than the Germans (four leaders with a -2 total mods V German 3 leaders with a -1, matching the Russians on turn 5). Support for these fine gents is 2xMMG. 3 LMG’s, 2 ATR’s a little 50Mtr and a 82Mtr!! Oh did I forget the tanks? Try two T34′s and two T-70′s! The Russians though have to control all buildings and rubble at game end so it’s all most an order to kill all Germans. 6.5 turns do give them enough time to do this but they have to keep an eye out for those reinforcements. If they can get far enough forward it will get nasty. Board 43 gets used on this so no new board today gents.

I know I need time as this force is fairly brittle and given the number of infantry and tanks I could be overwhelmed. Against my normally better judgement I set up a squad in a foxhole beyond the brush to the bottom of the map and a Dummy stack in support to hopefully give him pause for thought. A half squad in a foxhole behind a hedge in the wheat field buttered against the brush. the idea being he will be ignored for the most part as he can only be hit beyond or against the hedge. I was happy to throw away a half squad on anyone wishing to track him down given the time it would take. The isolated buildings to the South (top of the map) were covered by a dummy in the front building and a real unit in the rear building and further supported by a couple of squads in the hedge line. Along from this was the ATG covering the direct approach to the main defence, which is where the rest of the troops were including the two MMG’s the ATR and the Mtr which was using spottered fire.

Human Wave

Duncan brings a large force below the brush area and I hold my fire. A smaller force makes it’s way towards the isolated buildings and this is the area he also brings on the two Mtr’s. I open up with one of the MMG’s, I did not plan to keep these out f the battle as I needed to break as many units as possible as early as possible. This was all about slowing him down. The T34′s held back as he wanted them for later in the game against the StuG’s and did not want to give me any side shots by moving to far forward. Instead he was happy to lay acquires on my MMG’s. The two T-70′s were a different matter, he sent them forward looking for trouble and in doing so ignored my hedge hugging foxhole hiding half in the centre.

Turn two saw a nice human wave surge forward against my Concealed squad sitting on the edge of the brush. My dice were rather kind as I first fired at a distance of three hexes CR’ing a squad, next shot at a range of two broke yet more, PBF rolled not only low enough to not pin or worse but cut up some more boys in Brown. Finally the heroic squad had to face nasty Ruski jumping into the foxhole with them and yep they managed to not hurt themselves with a final Protective fire! This had left Duncan with a string of broken and/or CR’ed units and I had the delay I really needed. Making matters worse come CC I did damage as the brave boys went down fighting. Now this was rather a morale sapping sight (not for me you understand) but Duncan bravely soldiered on and so on my following turn I thought lets step up the heat, unhipped my ATG with a direct bead on the T-70′s. I hoped to take out at least one this turn and as the last one frantically tried to get into gear a solid round would take all motion away. With this in mind I choose the tank at the back, after all I don’t want a burning wreck spoiling my view. Could this be the second fastest conceding in my playing history? BOXCARS said it all. Well I told the wife that’s what I said, not sure she believes me!!! Well that cheered Duncan up a little. I did manage to blunt the attack against the isolated building with a break but Duncan looked set to take it the following turn.
Anyone know who Gavroche was?

Why am I going on about a kid from a musical you ask. Well I will tell you. As we played through the next turn I had a song from Les Miserables going through my head sang by that chipper little lad. You see Duncan had surged forward with the now so brave T34′s over running my ATG with not one but both of them! Shame the crew passed all MC’s required of them. He also ignored the lone double ?? that was my central halfsquad and took out my Dummy in the front isolated building. Oh yes Duncan was starting to get over his Human Wave but what about Gavroche? No not the ATG crew, if he had been in that hex he would have repaired the bloody ATG!!! No he was sitting in that foxhole in the centre with his mates with not a officer in site! I cx’ed then, jumped out of the foxhole, a storm of fire from the other side of the hedge from the MMG’s being pulled forward all to nothing, then for a total surprise and not a little annoyance I dropped them over the hedge TOWARDS the MMG’s oops that was a swing of +2 on the IFT you missed out on LOL. Then moved just the one hex through the brush towards a broken Russian, come advance these guys were going to put them under DM. This half squad spent the rest of the game either keeping the survivors of the Human Wave under DM or killing them for failure to rout etc. All in all he took out more Russians than the rest of my forces put together. The main attack was as good as shattered. The plucky little buggers can be seen one hex from their start positions below, yes that’s them, next to the pile of DM Russians. If that was a real counter he would now be mounted on my wall!!!!

Counterattack

This side show had caused Duncan to really dig deep into his PM, but as he pressed on he managed to take the last isolated building and break the defenders, this meant he would have the troops still coming up through the grain and remains of the bottom of the map to team up with this 3 squad force. Whilst he no longer had the numerical superiority he still had the tanks to freeze the hell out of me. He used the T-70′s to good effect in the middle but with fear of the ATG repairing he continued to overrun it with the T34′s (no infantry close enough or stupid enough to make that run). My two squads that were behind the isolated houses were all that stood in the way of a attack from three points so with this in mind Duncan tried to close with them. My dice went back to the start of the game breaking attacking units and laying down RF and fire lanes that whilst were low numbers had the advantage of open ground. After Duncan had had two squads broken through this RF of hell he unwisely thought I could not keep it up. Number three gets pinned in the open and come my turn is broken. I counterattack and the halfsquad he has left gets broken and I recapture the rear building. Only the low rolling in Rally saved me from taking the other back. Duncan now has to consider my reinforcements and reposition his T34′s my gun is now free of them but as yet to repair. His T-70′s can only keep me busy in a couple of locations, the 1st levels now have the MMG’s back upstairs and I have beaten back a attack that he tried to send in after I had caused the damage around the isolated buildings. Again I had used such as a single leader to put Russians under DM, Duncan did the best he could but all these mini units doing so much to keep him from getting troops was too much for him to recover from.

After failing to bring back units in his Rally Phase we called it as it was clear that without my reinforcements he would have a tough time gaining all the buildings and they were due.

End positions.

I think I had more fun than Duncan with this one. The Human Wave really did a lot f damage to him and whilst he was likely to take damage he got more than he should. Both of us have got used to how much damage a Banzai can do, this was no Banzai. Frustration I think lead to the continued moves through the RF but he did need a result soon as time was running, but again it so worked in my favour.

I think the scenario is a good one, the Russians get a lot as they need a lot as they will loose plenty as they cross the open ground.