This is the last in the Borodino Station mini-campaign in Workers and Peasants. Quite an interesting series of scenarios that highlight the high tide of the German attack toward Moscow. This last scenario is the the last counter attack by the Soviets on one of the neighboring town of Anieki. Historically, the Soviets were able to drive the SS men out of the town, but this one is a bit tough for the attacking Soviets.

The Soviets have a small force to attack the town. With only two companies of SMG's and two companies of armor, they will need to use them wisely to gain the town. They are also hindered by a lower morale as the attacker. But the Germans are not much better. They are on the defense with control of the town, but they to have a lower morale and a good chance of bad leadership. My play did did not disappoint in the lower leadership for the Germans, 2x 7-0-0 and 1x6-0-0, made me think that the German's might get bowled over. But they made a better stand than I thought. This gave me the though that these SS learn quickly.

To start the Germans setup first with occupying the town. They position most of the INF's as dugin units just outside the town and have the support units in the town covering the main advances. The Soviets advance from the southwest using the cover of the woods just before the town. With there SMG's and T-26's they will need to close on the town as there long range fire is limited to the T-34's. The Germans have good AT with a 37mm, 50mm AT guns as well as a StugIIIB. The Soviets will need to deal with those first.

Gaining the LOS on the southern edge of the town Soviet OBA score the first loses with a direct hit on the 37mm AT. This leaves a gap that the SS Major moves his HMG and a INF to cover it just as the loss of the dugin SS units in front gives the Soviet confidence in a sure win. T-34's advance to provide support fire and try to get the StuGIIIB just back to the north in the town. Several AT shots go back an forth before the StugIIIB is reduced, but stays in good order. While Soviet SMG's go into assault with the SS HMG and INF in the southern town hex, the AT battle continues. But this time the reduced Stug gets the win by reducing and destroying one T-34. The other finishes off the Stug in the next turn.

Within the Soviet assault the SS INF is reduced and the the HMG is demoralized. But the lowest moraled SS lieutenant comes to the rescue and get then back to a disrupted state. Braving the Soviet SMG's he keeps them in the fight for three turns before they are destroyed. The lieutenant survives to fight another day. But this would be enough to delay the Soviets long enough to deny then the win and possibly make a German win. But this would not last. Casualties make it hard for the SS to hold all the town hexes. The Soviets were able to take one and contest another, this plus the high SS casualties reduced the game to draw.

The last point to make is how both OBA's played a large role in the play. with 30 and 36 OBA shots the was a lot of morale checks that both sides kept failing due to their low morale. The Soviets were particularly hampered with at least a company of SMG's out of the fight at any time. The Germans were a bit better, they to had about a company of men trying to recover each turn, but given that they were defending on a narrow front, they did not require those men all the time. Morale is such a killer in this game.

In the end, I could not help to think that the SS, even with the low morale was learning and build experience that would be used in their stubborn defense later in the war.

Interesting looking scenario on paper and not too large so might as well check it out! The Germans defend the town hexes and the Soviets try to take it away with points scored for town controlled hexes and eliminated units and 14 turns to try. In my battle, the Germans rolled very good results through the first three turns of combat turns which really put the game in their favor as when the major fighting for the town happened, both sides were pretty worn-out with many units demoralized & disrupted and many Soviet units were out of the game altogether. The StugIIIB protected in a town hex is a tough bugger and never think your T-34a is so invincible that it can just park adjacent to an enemy 50mm AT gun. I also wonder if there is enough Soviet Infantry to do you job on this scenario? I mean they have to get within one hex of the enemy to even fire on them, since they are the SMG variety. In my game, the Germans had 21 more points then the Soviets for a German major victory.

A smallish scenario played over the course of a year with richvalle here via e-mail. This looked to be a tough one for the Soviets as they have the edge in armored units (3x T34as and 6x T26s) but all their INF units are SMGs with a range of 1 - meaning all attacks had to be adjacent/assaults. We also played with 4th Ed rules to give it a go and to learn the additional rules and for the most part, I did favor the new rules, however, I have to say that the optional Mire rule does make the Soviet tactics of keeping armor hidden from the Axis almost impossible as it could potentially eliminate the armored group from being effective. As for the battle itself, I tried as the Soviets to approach from the southeast, curling around the woods with armor and leading the infantry through the woods in order to try and get within range to provide artillery spotting to clear the southern part of the the village. This plan ran awry as good rolls on German OBA resulted in step reductions and disruptions and demoralized units that effectively stopped the attack cold in its tracks. With morale being shoddy to begin with and recovery almost impossible, the armor was left alone to try and press the attack. After several turns of firing back and forth, I conceded the game as it I did not have enough time to accomplish any of the victory conditions.

In a face-to-face game, this scenario really tests the mettle of the Soviet player as he has to be able to get his units into position and be able to launch assaults before he can even fire a shot. To me, there was no clear-cut way to get into position to do this and it turned into a game of rolling recovery rolls and moving armor to take pot-shots at the STUGIIIB with little else to do. Hence the 2 rating. Maybe a different approach might have worked better even approaching from the north would have taken half the allotted turns to get in position.