The battle in deep forest on the Southern front was coming to its conclusion. The German and Hungarian troops had smashed in the Soviet right flank and had swept up supplies and equipment. All was not lost for the Soviets, as they still had a chance to save an even greater amount of war material than had been captured. The Soviet pocket was shrinking, and time was running out.
Game Note: Heading into the final stage of the fight, the Axis forces has seized one Material token. Two more remained on the board and both were inside the remaining pocket of Soviet resistance. The two tokens were moving back, but slowly.
The Soviets were giving a good show of resistance, but cracks were forming. They had lost the railroad bridge and a German rifle squad had crossed a rocky ford in the right rear of the Soviet line. The Soviets were down to one deployment Jump Off Point, the other two being captured. Their morale was also dropping.
Near the railroad bridge where fierce hand to hand combat had resulted in the taking of the first Material Token by the Germans, the Soviets shored up the line by deploying an additional rifle squad. Along with the ever-present KV2, two Soviet rifle squads poured murderous fire into the Germans, and checked their advance. A German Fedlwebel and Obergefreiter were wounded, and another Obergefreiter was killed. One of the German squads was pinned down and the other two, weakened by their recent assault could make no headway.
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The roaming German rifle squad that had recently crossed the river at a ford, had flanked this end of the line and pushed deeper into the Soviet right rear. With a show of Initiative that German Squad leaders were known for, the Obergefreiter “volunteered” two men to form a team, load up with explosives and stalk the KV2 that was blasting the Germans on the bridge.
The two men creeped forward, played a quick game of Rock, Paper, Certain Death, and chose one of them to race at the tank. With a spirited yell, the chosen brave Lancer ran up to the rear of the beast and lobbed the explosives on to the deck, just behind the turret. Turning away, the lad then sprinted for a nice solid thing to hide behind and heard a satisfying “boom” as the bombs found their mark. The trooper, now back in cover, peeked over a log at his handy work only to see the KV unharmed and unperturbed. The damn thing was ubiquitous and impervious.
The fight near the bridge was now a stalemate, but it forced the Soviets to divert troops that were needed elsewhere.
The Hungarians, who are usually aggressive during these fights, now did what they always do: they died in droves. This time it led to results.
Two Soviet rifle squads that were the center-left anchor in the woods to the left of the open bowl had been trading fire with the advancing Hungarians for most of the day. Casualties were increasing and one of the squads was without a leader, who was killed early on, and down to a squad machine gun team and single rifleman. The squad to its right was more intact but taking shock and losing effectiveness. Worse, the Hungarians were reinforced by another squad, increasing their numbers to thirty-some troops in three (two and half with casualties) squads who were now pressuring the Soviets.
It was time for the final push. One of the Hungarian squads volleyed into the tired Russians, while the other two charged. The resulting hand to hand combat wiped the Soviets to a man. The Hungarians had driven them out, but themselves sustained heavy losses including a wounded Junior and Senior leader.
The Soviet center-left was gone and they had nothing behind in reserves. The Hungarians were weakened, but couldn’t be stopped. They pushed into the retreating supply convoy and captured it with gusto. The Axis had won the day
Aftermath and Analysis
The German and Hungarian victory was substantial. They had captured a majority of the supplies and the Soviets hadn’t rescued any out of the forest. The Soviets were handicapped by having two Jump Off Points on the opposite side of the river, and only one on the same side as all three Material Tokens. The grouping of the Material Tokens did allow for a more compact defensive perimeter, but two things happened.
First, the fickle dice. Significantly more double and even triple phases came up for the Germans than the Soviets. This allowed the Germans to blitz the Soviet right, taking two Jump Off Points in the process and hitting the Soviets from the front and side simultaneously. This allowed for the capture of the first Material Token.
Secondly, the Soviets failed to do anything to stop this blitz. They did not deploy from the Jump Off Point nearest the river. (They had made a strategic decision-probably a sound one-to ignore the far right JOP as a waste of resources to defend.) They didn’t try to block either the Railroad bridge or the ford. A single squad (or giant tank) at either location would have bottlenecked the German attack on that flank. The Soviets were unprepared for the rapidity of the German attack.
The Axis forces realized early on that the open bowl in the middle was a bad job. Once they decided to go around, they were able to catch the Soviets at the edges where there was less of a defense.
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