29 June, 1941. Final report of Maj. H.J., 23rd Fortified Region

Upon receiving intelligence reports of trained mountain troops advancing on Murmansk, the 23rd Fortified Region prepared its defense. This sector consisted of cold, barren rock, broken only by a lonely road that wound east. Knowing that the Nazi invader would attempt to slip past our lines, the Soviet forces prepared a wide defense, with troops positioned in prepared entrenchments such that overlapping fields of fire were available, especially trained on the road. The Soviets also placed mortar units on the northern and southern flanks at ranges that could rain fire along the roadway. The Soviets also possessed three 76.2mm cannon, two of which were entrenched slightly south of the road, with the third farther south to add punch to the mortars.

The Nazi forces began their push at 2200 hours. The Hun hordes obviously planned to overwhelm the center of the Soviet defense along the roadway, and advanced cautiously. Soviet aircraft gained the first glorious casualties, bombing German bicycle troops. But we did not reckon with the large artillery support the Germans brought with them, and within 30 minutes the two 76.2mm cannon located in the center of the defense were totally destroyed.

This loss proved a harbinger of things to come. Losing their primary artillery support, the brave Russian defenders could only hope to slow down the German advance. With slow, methodical approaches, the Germans assaulted the main defenses dug on and near the road. By 0200 hours the battle was decided. The German hordes had destroyed or rendered combat ineffective 2 76.2mm cannon, 2 mortar crews, 6 heavy machinegun platoons, and 7 rifle platoons. One lieutenant also gave his life in defense of the Soviet Union. The German losses were relatively light: 2 infantry platoons, 1 bicycle platoon and 1 engineer platoon. The battle was a decisive German victory.

This was another game played with my son, who took the Germans this time. His aggression was more tempered, and he won with a great use of artillery and vicious assaults. The Germans needed to inflict 24 step losses without losing 12 or more to win. The final count was 32 step losses for the Soviets compared to only 10 for the Germans.

Once again I found this scenario very enjoyable. Despite owning Edelweiss for almost a decade I have not played it before. I have enjoyed both scenarios so far: they seem to be well designed and present difficult tactical and setup challenges for both sides. This is a far cry from a number of the early East Front scenarios I remember that (in my memory) seemed to be often one sided or lacking in tactial choices. I recommend this one.

This scenario needs reworking, which is not uncommon for the very early PZG scenarios. The Soviets have to defend the long side of an entire Afrika Korps map, preventing the morale 9 Germans from either clearing out their fortifications or... exiting steps off the map. Option one would make for an interesting scenario possibly, even though the PZG moral system kind of breaks down with morale 9 armies with high leader counts/quality. However, it really is impossible to stop the Germans if they overload on the north or south flank and simply walk around the Soviets and off the map. Its a shame really, because this scenario gives a fairly unique situation with a lot of toys for the Soviets to work with.

I really hate using gamey tactics like this, especially in a solo play; but the only other option is to pretty much march right into the Soviet center... and that feels disengenious as well.

I reserve "1" ratings for scenarios that are out of the box (exceptions for typos etc.) broken. And this one falls into that category. If I misread something in the setup/vcs I will rerun this one...