One Hour Grossdeutschland at Kursk

 A game I've been planning for a (very) long time is the attack by Grossdeutschland Division at the start of the Battle of Kursk. It is interesting because GD had been reinforced by an entire brigade of brand new Panthers (51st and 52nd Panzer Abt) with 200(!) Panthers. This gave the division a strength of over 330 tanks and assault guns, more than most Panzer Corps. 

Facing them was the veteran 67th Guards Division, heavily reinforced with artillery, and dug in with a view to defeating the Germans typical armoured attack with a combination of minefields and interlocked AT defences in depth.

The deployment and battle is covered in exhaustive depth in David Glantz's 'Kursk', and in castign around for how best to run the battle, I realised that the terrain and situation mapped quite well onto the 'Fortified Defence' scenario in the One Hour Wargames book, as did the OBs of the units involved. I had to fudge things a bit to make it work, but it was close enough.

Battlefield from the south, the main road to Oboian runs up the middle. The marshy Vorskolets valley is on the right (the original scenario just has a big wood), and I added the low ridge at the far end as irl the ground rose into a plateau cut up by balkas.

The Cherkasskoe strong point on the Soviet right. irl there was a huge minefield just west of here, which  nicely truncated the front on this side. There is one Guards infantry regiment in the strongpoint, reinforced with an Army level AT regiment and the light tanks from a tank regiment. Just next to them to the northeast is the 201st Regiment (attached to the division) reinforced with an SP artillery regiment with SU76s.

And the Butuvo strong point on the Soviet left, garrisoned by 99th GIR with 241st Independant Tank Regiment behind. The divisional AT reserve is just off to the right with an infantry battalion (3/99 GIR), divisional sapper battalion and the divisional AT battalion. The tank regiment detached all its T70s for infantry support, leaving it with just its T34s. 

The woods are impassable to tanks, but not infantry, and although the division is holding a six mile front, the 'attackable' bit is only really four miles. In the real battle GD attacked on a front of 3000m (or two miles), so it will be interesting to see what the players do.

67th Guards HQ, along with their NKVD pals. Tim and Jerry were running the Russians as they are both wily veterans, and the Russians knew what they were doing in this engagement.

The Russians also had lavish support assets. The division was reinforced with two entire 152mm Gun Artillery regiments, which meant I could use my shiny new 152mm guns for the first time. I added an AA battalion to the artillery as well. There were also various aircraft in attendance.

Grossdeutschland lined up waiting to attack. John and Pete commanded this lot. To keep the scenario manageable, the division attacks in two waves (each of six units), which nicely corresponded with the panzer regiment, Panther brigade and six panzergrenadier battalions the division had. irl it was the tanks which were held up by minefields, but I split each wave into a PG regiment and a panzer regiment.

There were two bases of Panthers and two bases of Pz III/IV, including one reinforced with the divisional Tiger company. Strictly there should have been four bases of Panthers, but they lost half their number due to breakdown and minefields before they made contact.

German air support. Combat debut for my Ju 88, the Stuka and Henschel have been out before.

GD had two PG regiments, the Fusilier and Grenadier Regiments, each with a gepanzert battalion and two lorried. For the first wave I added in the divisional Stug battalion as a support option, and for the second wave, the divisional AT battalion and panzer engineer assault company (vehicles parked off to the right).

This was the combat debut for my PSC Sturmhaubitze, standing in for the Stug battalion.

The German artillery, a Wespe and 105mm howitzer, plus some light flak. This unit would be part of each wave (making the total units up to six for each).

One of the Russian strongpoints, garrisoned by a weak Guards rifle regiment (the 96th GIR in this case) as various elements were detached as outposts or as Div reserve, plus its extra 76mm AT Regiment and some T70s from the 241st Tank Regt. As long as this garrison unit was intact, it got a 'free shot' of heavy AT fire, but once it was knocked out, the extra guns were lost.

The main Russian defences were nicely echeloned back across the battlefield, and looked very neat and tidy. Montgomery would have approved.

The Germans very wisely decided to attack in great depth on a very narrow front, funnily enough on a two mile front, just like the real division. Dismounted Grenadier Regiment infantry on the left, Panzer Regiment GD on the right with the armoured panzergrenadiers behind (I/GRGD).

The Germans flowed around Cherkasskoe while the town was pounded by artillery, Stukas and Ju88s. The supporting fires were effective at suppressing the defenders, but didn't inflict much damage on the deep entrenchments.

The Russians responded with a torrent of artillery fire and air strikes, scattering death, destruction and disorganisation among the leading German units. The NKVD provided some encouragement to the defenders.

Tim shifted his HQ west, and the T34s motored along the ridge and took up new positions on the main road.

The bombing and artillery fire continued on the town, and the defenders finally took some losses.

The leading Panzerkeil had had enough by now, and the Tigers and I/PRGD fell back to reorganise. The panzergrenadiers and second panzer battalion passed through to carry on the attack.

II/PRGD rolled forward to engage the 201st and their SU76s supported by Henschels.

But in a shock development 241st ITR raced forwards down the road and outflanked them!

Grenadier Regiment GD assaulted Cherkasskoe from two sides through Russian artillery fire and bombing.

Now the fighting was in close, the Russian support assets switched their attention to the German units reorganising in the second line.

The 201st was badly knocked around by the panzers, but the counterttack by 241st ITR was decisive and burning Pz IIIs and IVs littered the ground in front of the Soviet defences.

German infantry losses were mounting but things were looking very sticky for 96th GIR as the defenders were worn down with no possibility of rallying under the constant assaults.

German bombers continued to pound the 201st, and the rejuvenated I/PRGD with its Tigers shot up the T34s who retreated unceremoniously back to where they'd come from in a state of disorder.

But sadly my shiny new Ju88 was shot down! That is traditional for new models in wargames I find.

The 96th GIR finally collapsed, leaving Jerry all alone with his megaphone while the NKVD looked on.

The Russians responded with a final airstrike against the armoured panzergrenadiers and their supporting Stugs.

This battalion also collapsed, leaving my StuH burning. Another successful combat debut!

The Tigers and infantry rolled forward again and this time managed to occupy Cherkassoe. The first Russian strongpoint had fallen.

The defences opened up a withering fire on the remaining panzers.

And they joined their pals as blazing wrecks on the steppe. 'The Tigers are burning'.

At this point, the Germans removed the remains of their first wave and prepared to bring the second wave on, which was also a handy point to break for the evening. In the distance was the sound of hundreds of revving Panther engines as the next lot of Germans lined up...

And what a mighty armada it turned out to be. Overnight the German had decided to advance and reoccupy Cherkasskoe, then roll up the Russian line to the northeast. 51st and 52nd Panzer Battalions led the way, and the panzergrenadiers followed. Fusilier Regiment GD (FRGD) was supported by Marders from the divisional AT battalion, and the armoured engineer company from the divisional pioneer battalion. 

The view from the Russian side was a bit alarming. The Panthers are mostly Zvezda Panther Ds, with a couple of Peter Pig Panther Gs to make up the numbers. Both models have the same chassis size, but the metal gun barrels are about twice as thick as the plastic ones. These aren't all my 15mm Panthers, but it is the most I've ever put on the table at once.

The 201st and 241st had also already planned what they were going to do.

And before the Germans could get there, the 201st rushed forwards and re-occupied the strongpoint, albeit without all the extra guns. Jerry and the NKVD also took up residence, Jerry bellowing insults at the Panthers with his megaphone.

The Germans realised that simply running a load of tanks into the fortified village probably wasn't a great idea, so one battalion of Panthers swerved off to the right, and the infantry followed up behind an artillery bombardment and Stuka barrage.

The Russians responded in kind and inflicted losses on the armoured panzergrenadiers. One of the IL-2s was finally shot down however, so both sides were back to air parity.

The leading Panthers ran into a hail of AT fire from T34s, the divisional AT/Sapper detachment and the AT regiments in Butuvo. The Panthers heavy frontal armour shrugged off a lot of the fire, but some hits were registered.

The panzergrenadiers piled in behind artillery and Stukas. The final squadron of Stukas succumbed to AA fire, but it didn't matter as vicious close quarters fighting erupted in the village. The 201st took heavy losses and became disorganised.

51st Pz Abt decided to close the range with the 241st and assaulted them to pin them in place. The T34s took heavy losses the brigade also became disorganised. 

Perhaps unwisely, II/FRGD had advanced next to the 52nd Panzer Abt, and with nothing else to fire at, every Russian gun in range plus all the artillery and remaining air landed on the unfortunate Landsers.

Exposed to this weight of fire in open ground, the battalion disintegrated, leaving burning Marders scattered across the battlefield. The German response managed to pin 3/99, but in their trenches, their losses were light. 

Back in Cherkasskoe, I/FRGD pulled back to reorganise (its halftracks allowed it to break off) and III/FRGD moved through and continued the fight.

Faced with this fresh onslaught, the regiment was destroyed leaving burning SU76s, and once more, Jerry was left on his own in the village! 

51st Panzer Abt finished off the T34s, but not before sustaining heavy losses in the close quarter fighting and it became disorganised. The battalion was down to a single hit left.

The dismounted panzergrenadiers cleared through Cherkasskoe and Jerry fell back to join the NKVD outside the village.

Meanwhile every Russian gun in range opened up on the weakened 51st Pz Abt, and rolled three sixes and a five. Ouch. The battalion was completely destroyed. The interlocked AT defences were proving to be formidable.

With that, the remaining Germans had enough. They might have rolled up the 3/99th, but there wasn't enough time left to take Butuvo before nightfall, so instead the surviving Panthers fell back to Cherkasskoe and waiting for the maintenance and recovery troops to get some tanks back into service for the next day. 

The Russian 67th Guards Division was left still covering the main road to Oboian, albeit having lost two thirds of their division. Order of Lenin all around!

Well that was fun and rattled along at a fair old pace as the mass of firepower removed units quite quickly, despite their ability (in my rules) to rally hits off. Once again, a very clever scenario from Neil Thomas, which felt very well balanced and with lots of critical decisions for the players to make. I think the Germans were quite right to focus on Cherkasskoe as their first objective, but I'm not sure the second wave made the  best use of their forces - they would probably have been better off leaving Cherkasskoe to the infantry and concentrating the Panther Brigade in the centre against the tanks and infantry dug in to the gap there. Oh well, we will never know.

The well tried mechanisms worked fine, although I'm wondering if the rally option is a bit generous in its current form and I might revert to the dice throwing approach I used to use.

It was nice to get so many toys out, and I was particularly pleased to use so much stuff for the first time. It was very gratifying that the game also obeyed the immutable rule of wargaming - that new toys never survive their first battle!