Tough, tough, tough on the Russians. Despite favourable odds in terms of sheer numbers, crossing open ground is never an easy thing, and that's exactly what the Sov's had to do in order to dislodge the smaller but determined Germans occupying the town. Attempts to use the mortars and heavy guns to soften the German forces did little and, perhaps unwisely, the Soviets pressed on into the town to attempt to get close enough to assault. Only a few Russian units made to the town unscathed, leaving far too diluted a force pool to launch anything like a reasonable attack. German counterattacks were ineffective, as well, so the Russians at least had a small window to try to rally and attack once more. In the end, time simply ran out; each time the Russians would rally and attempt to reinforce an assault hex, another unit would fall into disorder and precious momentum would never be gained. Result: Overwhelming German victory, with only 1½ steps lost and half the town still in their possesion, vs. 10 steps lost for the Russian side.

Setup: The Germans setup on the southern edge of town, spread out over four hexes, awaiting the Soviet assault.

Play: The Soviets enter on the southern map edge, and they send their cavalry up the west side, while the anti-tank guns move to the hills to setup and take shots at the German armor. The infantry force moves up the center towards the German defenses. The guns unlimber as the main force and cavalry arrive at the edge of the Germans' range.

The cavalry decide to charge the western most Germans, but only two of the three make it, the third being completely destroyed by German opportunity fire. As they charge, the main force moves up adjacent to the Germans, but this time the opportunity fire is less effective and the Soviets begin to exchange fire with the Germans.

After several turns of ineffective fire between the Germans and the Soviets, the Soviets assault across the southern half of the town, and they quickly begin to suffer heavy losses, due to the combined armored-infantry tactics of the Germans, and the lower morale of the Soviets. They fight back and do some damage, taking out a few steps, but by the end of the game, the Soviets make no progress in the town.

Result: German Victory

After reading 4th edition rules, I decided to give PG a go with an introductory scenario for the previous edition. Turned out to be a mistake. I went against Dmitry's Soviets. I put my 105 mm artillery at the back along with Panzers IIIs (lest they be eradicated) and gave them a screen of two platoons and a Luff. That left me with a smattering of troops to defend Nizhny Kurp proper. I also put a sacrificial Sergeant on top of the forward hill to serve as an artillery spotter.

Dmitry stormed onto the field in force trying to stomp the Sergeant who managed to call artillery twice before being overrun. Artillery strikes proved atrociously effective, killing and disrupting Soviet limbers and cavalry all around the place, lowering his initiative. When Dmitry's men finally came to grips with the Germans in the villiage, he quickly found he couldn't muster a column on assault table strong enough to hurt me. After some seesaw fighting for about 7 turns we decided to stop because that wasn't much fun.

Well, what to say? Probably the game requires more patience and finesse than we were willing to display. I certainly won't turn sour, but with my propensity to play scenarios per chronology it'll be for a while before I revisit PG (EF is finished at September 1942, RTB is still ahead in January 1945).

AAR in Russian with photos: http://tesera.ru/user/Andreas/journal/1100279

Germans set up with 105's far north behind the small hill, the HMG on top of the southern hill, and the remaining infantry and tanks around the southern perimeter of the city. The Soviets entered the map with their artillery and mortars on the left (western) part of the map, their infantry in the center, and the cavalry and ATRs on the right. Having no cover they had to move quickly forward and after turn two the infantry had overwhelmed the German HMG on the hill. At that point though the Soviet advance ground to a halt. The German infantry in the city covered all the lines of advance and the Soviet artillery could be seen by the Germans in the city, making it easy pickings for the German on-board and off-board artillery. On turn four the Soviets used their ATR's to get the two advancing Panzer III's in a crossfire, but the ATR shots missed and the tanks retreated east of the city before any damage was done. The Soviet cavalry neaded north to try and get around te back of the Germans infantry, but was pinned down by artillery fire. On turn 7 the German reinforcements arrived and hampered the efforts of the cavalry even further. Turn seven also saw the Soviet infantry get a foothold in the city since the German infantry didn't have enough units to cover every possible approach. As the game went on the Soviets couldn't do any more though and it ended up an easy German victory. They simply didn't have enough firepower to overcome the German tactical and morale advantages. With the Soviets needing to control every hex of the large city I can't see them ever winning this one.