Round 2 - PBP 14 Under Siege
I had the Russians attacking Ben Jones' Germans in this deep snow, falling snow, extreme winter city fight on half of board 20. The scenario didn't look too special on paper but it turned out to be a highly enjoyable nip and tuck affair. Despite us both going through the snow rules prior to play we missed the bit about the extra MP for AFVs and bog checks - whoops! That innocent looking extra 0.5 MF for open ground really makes a big difference for Russian movement so I always had 'human wave' in the back of my mind never having done one before. Ben had his ATG on the (non-existent) bridge, his squads spread out along his front with the HMG in the central block.
I probably didn't push hard enough before his reinforcements came on. Heavy snow started falling on turn 2 and remained for the whole game. My KVs didn't achieve very much - one immobed itself but at least it had a LOS down the orchard road on my right. I did 3 overruns on Germs on roads (one on the crew which had malfed the ATG) all to no effect. One was taken out by CC reaction fire at the end though the other did elim the German 'half squad of doom' with crew small arms - never seen that happen before. Of course these overruns wouldn't have been possible had we remembered about the deep snow movement costs for AFVs.
While most of my guys were lined up along the road that runs right across the board, I positioned my guys for a human wave into the central block as he had malfed his HMG with extreme winter penalties - sadly for me one squad in the middle of the chain somehow got pinned so the wave never happened. A couple of Russian squads pushed down the left flank towards his ATG and eventually took this position with the help of a KV. Most of the reinforcements (4 548, 2 leaders including a 9-2, 2 LMGs and 2 DCs - a very potent force indeed) slid into the big stone building on the German left but never managed to cross the orchard road (a squad with a DC that pinned in the road was the third overrun target). Things were looking a bit grim for the Russkies but suddenly I got some Germs for failure to rout in the central block, we did a VP count and I was ahead with one Germ player turn and a bit left. Just as it seemed Ben would have to force the recapture of a couple of buildings, his sniper struck, breaking a squad in the (non-existent) rowhouse which would have allowed him to waltz forward unmolested so we drank up and packed up.
(PBP 14 SSR 6. Bar closure is NA.)
This page last updated 4/26/00
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