Panzerblitz Lite 4 - Stalino (twice)

So, this one was intended to be the 800th blog post, but I miscounted. Hey ho. 

After the Vyazma game I had a bit of a think and made some more revisions. I wanted to open the game up a bit so it had those bursts of mobility which characterised the original Panzerblitz , so road movement changed radically - horse and tracked units got one free hex on a road and motorised units got two free hexes. This is a subtle difference from my original 3 hex/4 hex on road as it allowed a unit to move cross country THEN use its road bonus, and even move off again. It accounts for the some of the movement rate mapping anomalies eg in PB trucks have 10 MP, roads cost 1/2 and MP, so in theory can can move 20 road hexes (or 5km).

The other big change is to loosen up artillery spotting for the Germans. Infantry and armour can act as spotters for IF units within 2 hexes, but infantry can also act as FOs for Regimental and Div artillery units with no distance limits. I kept the RAW limits for the Russians, as they seem more appropriate.

I went for a more PB like spotting - spotting range is 2 hexes except vehicles in the open can be spotted at 3 hexes, and infantry/guns in cover can only be spotted at 1 hex. If one unit can spot a target though, all units within 3 hexes and LOS can spot it. So you need to put spotters adjacent to units in cover, like the original game.

I'm still wrestling with gullies though. I know how they work in PB, but trying to map them to 1km hexes... for this iteration they count as 'terrain' to enter but units can move along them at the x country rate and leave them at no penalty. If you are in a gully hex you are in the gully, no popping outside, but two units can be in the gully.

Otherwise I had a think about cavalry - move 2 but no road bonus (apart from horse drawn guns which go 1+1). They do not have to stop in 'terrain' though, apart from the dense woods, which gives them a mobility advantage in close country. 

So, onto Stalino, one of may favourite PB scenarios.

Here is the scenario card and my custom geomorphic map. Boards 1,2 and 3 in order. This scenario is set in the aftermath of Kursk in August 1943, a Sov Mechananised Brigade is exploiting west, past a German infantry Regiment. The Russians have to take a piece out of the Germans (kill 3 for marginal victory, 6 for tactical) AND exit all their units westwards by turn 10. Any units left on table count as destroyed. The Germans get VPs for killing stuff too, whether it is actually killed or just left on table, at a similar rate to the Russians.

So the Russians need to both advance rapidly and stop to kill Germans. The Germans just need to slow them up enough without losing too much stuff.

Here is the battlefield. Germans set up in the centre (which now I've standardised on a 9x8 with side hex extensions is the middle 323232323 hexes). Russians come on from the east. The obvious feature is the big hill in the middle  with the major road junction, and all that horrible terrain in the southwest.

The 'mighty' Germans. Five leg rifle companies, two horse drawn mortar companies, one motorised artillery company (the Regimental guns, so 5km range max) and a motorised AT company. In great excitement, they also have two obstacles and one minefield! Both of them are serious barriers to movement (a full move to cross) plus the minefields attack any units on them before any artillery fire etc.

The mighty Russians, and entire Guards Mechanised Brigade! Three motorised rifle battalions with two rifle companies each, a motorised engineer company, armoured recce company, tank regiment with 2 x T34/76, Heavy Assault Gun Regiment with 1 x SU152, Light Assault Gun Regiment with 1 x SU76, 2 x towed 120mm Mortar Companies, 1 x towed 76mm Artillery company (as usual PB classes these as anti-tank guns, because that is the label on the 76.2mm gun in the Aberdeen Proving Ground), 1 x  towed AT company. 

What an armada! I decided to treat the SU76 as (light) assault guns as that is what they were for, even if PB thinks they were some sort of Soviet Marder.

The optimum PB defence for the German is to cluster their forces on the big hill covered by all the mines and obstacles, move their artillery to the rear on Turn 1 and set it up to block the road and cover the valley with direct fire (no spotting distance limits in PB), and put a few spotters in the various woods and things to call in IF as the Russians go past.

I could almost do this defence in  PB Lite, but I had to put one rifle company out on the hill to the north to spot. I also put a block on the hex between the two villages in the north as I know what the optimum Russian strategy is too... that creates a triple or quadruple deep layer of movement obstructions to any sneaky outflanking moves via the north. Otherwise the roadblocks and mines go on the roads leading up to the big hill where the other German infantry are concentrated. The AT gun company will run mobile interference on the road network, and the mortars are positioned on the reverse slope to be spotted by infantry within 2 hexes.

From repeated playings, and notes in the "Wargamers Guide to Panzerblitz", the optimum strategy for the Russians, is go right flanking ie a dash across the north. But they also need to kill enough stuff for a marginal victory en route (3 German units more than they lose). I know how to do that in PB, lets see how it works in this game.

Turn 1 they pile on in the northeast, taking advantage of the more liberal road movement allowances. You can do all sorts of clever stuff when the road hexes are a bonus move. 

The Germans respond with some mortar fire which disrupts one Russian unit, but the rest of the mobile Germans scatter to their pre-planned positions in the rear. The AT guns are heading off to the northwest up the highway.

The Russians are slowed up by the gully and woods in front of the 2 hex hill, but they have to advance as  the German company up there is invisible in the woods. The German call down a storm of artillery and mortar fire both from this hill, and from the guys in the dense wood (which can see three hexes now, including over trees and villages).  The AT guns have made it to the ridge in the northwest.

With  the entire Russian army in front, the German infantry fall back after calling in more indirect fire. The German mortars in the centre gully also leg it back to the big hill. Mmm. I've misjudged the north a bit, the German infantry don't have a secure escape route from their gully. but their ZOC is keeping the Russians pinned.

Oops! The tidal wave breaks. The Russians annihilate the German infantry to their front, and a flanking force heads off towards the big hill to get some kills, led by the SU152. Most of the Russians pour westwards, hampered by the block in the north and the gullies. The Germans make a stand on the reverse slope, and close range infantry fire and direct fire from the artillery (I treat DF artillery as AT guns), knocks out some T34s.

Up in the northwest the towed AT is valiantly holding the road exit against a tidal wave of Russian motorised infantry. Hmm, guns seem really hard to hit with anything in the RAW don't they? The Russians are still hung up in the bad terrain, in the original PB, trucks were just a disaster in any sort of broken country. The Russian engineers made a feeble effort to clear the obstacles but gave up after a couple of turns.

The Germans are quite happy to fall back to the reverse slope of the big hill, while the Russians figure out what to do. The German artillery has a ZOC over the critical road junction in the centre left, and the Russian SP guns  in the forest are also trapped on the road by ZOC.

The Russian infantry fail to even disrupt the AT guns on the road junction, while a big traffic jam is building up behind.

They finally manage to clear the pesky AT gunners out of the way, and the first units get off the table. Now the issue is road capacity!

The remaining Russian armour on the hill makes a run for it. The Assault Guns don't have any choice but to advance and get stuck in ZOC on the hill, while the Russians further west end up facing off against the German artillery next to the road junction. 

In the north nearly all the Russians have got off now - all the surviving infantry (the Germans must have killed one at some point), the 120mm mortars, AT guns and recce.

The Russians have now eliminated three German units (AT guns, artillery and a mortar) for a marginal victory, BUT, they have lost two units destroyed and have four remaining on the table, which is a tactical German victory. Net result, German marginal victory. I forgot to count the KO'd T34s when I was working out the Russian exit strategy. What a dope! 

Anyway, that went pretty well, but it was a real struggle for the Russians to move across the table and fight as well. The ZOCs and some of the blocking terrain still make movement glacial at times, although the new road moves helped a lot to make the game more mobile. The obstacle rules worked OK (ie they were mainly avoided) and there wasn't much opportunity for gully movement. The new spotting rules didn't seem to break anything either.

Well, the game is all set up, lets go again. This time, I'm going to bin the ZOC rules AND stop treating villages as obstacles to movement. They aren't in PB, so I imagine this is also a holdover from the OHW conversion. That should free things up even more. There is already plenty of blocking terrain to, make movement difficult.

Right, second session.

Slightly different defence this time. The obstacles and mines are in the same place, as are the rifle companies, but this time I've put the AT guns forward onto the hill in the north with the rifle company. The mortar companies are massed together so they are both within two hexes of infantry on the big hill and can be spotted for by either concentration of infantry, allowing for massed fires. The artillery are set to dash for the rear and set up near the road junction again.

This time the Russians go for a centre/south approach, advancing on a broader front to maximise the use of the roads. They also make use of the lateral gully to advance as far as possible. They've made pretty good progress in one turn, and the more liberal road and village treatment helps a lot. 

Of course what they have actually done is advance right into the German kill sack. Ooops. Faced with such a target rich environment, every German unit in range opens fire, even the artillery stays to fire instead of relocating. The northern Russian column is torn apart, with one company completely destroyed, another disrupted. The AT guns in the woods on the hill are completely invisible as they blaze away - "Panzerbush"!. In fact it could have been even worse, but the Germans rolled some appalling dice for their artillery.

The Russians in the north stop to return fire and move more elements forward. Each column has an Assault Gun attached, and one German company is disrupted. Rather than hang around to be destroyed, the Germans fall back to the reverse slope. The Russian armour is stuck on the obstacles and can't enter the forest anyway. 

In the south however, the Russians are forging ahead. They bypass the minefields and start to work their way around the south of the big hill over the gully and through the woods. The German defensive fire is ineffective.

The Germans in the north fail to rally, and Russian Mortar and artillery fire disrupts the Germans in the village. The Russian indirect fire is so enthusiastic that the guns and one of the mortars run out of ammo.

The Russian northern column is still hung up on the obstacles, and starts to bypass them via the woods and gully. They should never have tried to force the barrier. The units in the gully can now spot the Germans on the northern hill. The Russian recce sits in the centre of the line calling in fire on the located targets.

The defence of the big hill is becoming disorganised. The Germans reoccupy the forest but faced with massed Russian armour and infantry, abandon the village. One German rifle company heads westwards to start setting up road blocks. The German artillery and mortars are still in position blazing away, but if the Russians break through, they will be dangerously exposed.

The Russians take the village and are now seriously outflanking the hill form the south. The rest of the terrain west from here is dreadful however, a maze of woods, gullies and a huge swamp across two hexes. Amazingly the Germans are still holding out on the hill in the north, but the infantry in the forest are disrupted.

The Germans decide to stand for one more turn. The guns and infantry open fire at point blank range and disrupt the Russians in the village.

But things are coming apart as waves of Russian infantry advance across the fields in the south. A couple of Russian units are disrupted, but one German rifle company is destroyed. It seems easier to destroy infantry than knock out the artillery and mortars, which doesn't seem quite right.

The Russians destroy the rifle company in the north and the Germans bug out along the line, heading westwards into cover and to set up blocking positions to delay the Russians. The German artillery stays behind to hold up the Russians. The Germans have lost three units now, and can only afford to lose two more before the Russians gain a tactical victory.

The German mortars and artillery disappear into the maze of gullies. They are all disrupted by Russian fire, but none are destroyed. In the north the German AT guns have withdrawn as far as the northwest village, but are now faced with slogging across the remaining hills and woods.

The terrain in the southwest is really awful for a rapid exit, so the Russians need to figure out a way to get off table in the centre. The only bright spot is that the centre column has finally broken through and is rapidly advancing via the gully. The surviving German infantry are on or next to the two hex hill in the west.

The Russians in the south pick their way through the gullies, the Russians swarm the central hill to lock down the road and knock out the German guns.

The Russians have now opened up the road, but there are still German infantry in the woods and gullies west of it. The southern wing is still hung up in the difficult terrain.

The Russians get lucky and destroy one of the German infantry. That is five German units down. However the Russians won't be able to exit a number of units as it is just too far to go, so for a win, I need to Russians to be able to knock out one more German unit while avoiding losing more than three more Russians (they already have two destroyed). That of course means leaving more Russian units to fight, which count as destroyed as they fail to exit. My head hurts!

The Russians hold the road corridor open while passing as many motorised units down it as possible (with their +2 hex moves). As there are still Germans adjacent, this would have been impossible with the old ZOC rules.

A great mass of Russian units gather ready to exit. The Russians leave two units behind to take out the last German rifle company, but they fail with poor dice rolls. In fairness I needed too make two rolls of 4+, so only a 25% chance. 

Most of the Russians get off the table, demonstrating advanced traffic management skills, but the last two fail to make it. That leaves the Germans with five units KO (a Russian marginal) vs four Russians KO or left on table (for a German marginal). It is a draw!

Blimey, that was exciting! In retrospect a frontal assault on the fortified position into bad terrain was a really stupid thing to do, and the northern route is still superior for the Russians. The new movement, gully, village, spotting, obstacle, artillery call and (lack of) ZOC rules worked really well though, so I'll keep those.

The game was largely decided by a few critical combat rolls though, many at relatively low odds. I can see why Disgruntled Fusilier has gone with a 3D6 system instead of the hyper tense 1D6 system. I've also noted some oddities in the CRT, namely that artillery make great blocking units as they are so hard to kill. This is a holdover from the CRT in OHW, where 'guns' are AT guns. 

My next job is to rework the CRT to get the combat results more in line with those in PB. I'm also  inclined to make the decent attacks more of a sure thing. A 2:1 attack in PB was 'anything but a 1', and I'm inclined to go with 2+ for AT fire vs armoured targets in the open, but 4+ if they are hull down. I'll play around with the hit numbers a bit and see how it goes.