Tigers at Minsk 3, KG Sievers

 I've spent a lot of time thinking about the previous two TaM scenarios. This third scenario introduces proper combined arms stuff with infantry, tanks and artillery. I made a few minor tweaks along the lines I suggested previously - now high number rolls are always good. I've also introduced a separate morale check for pin and stun recovery based on troop quality instead of what sort of cover they are in (essentially the Crossfire system). I'm not a fan of tactical games which don't include troop quality to some degree, and although it is factored into the overall force morale in the standard rules, I prefer to see individual element morale too. 

I've also differentiated between vehicle MGs and HE fire. MGs were always the preferred weapon of AFVs against infantry, so all tanks etc get 2D6 of VMG out to 4 hexes (500m).  The standard anti personnel factors, I regard as firing HE, so beyond 4 hexes, things like Pz 38s are only getting 1D6 of HE (and SU152s 3D6!), which also requires a successful to hit roll.

The biggest change is in the AT system, I just don't like the maths of the existing one, especially coupled with a D10 which produces the same wild spread of results that it did in Firefly. Instead we now have a 2D6 based to-hit system, base score of 5+ keeping the various tactical modifiers which already exist (as I think those are very clever) plus some to hit  range attenuation in 4 hex (500m) increments which mirror those in WRG

If you do hit something, I've borrowed the AT effect table from Neil Thomas which is D6 based and has an equal chance of no effect, stun or KO. The dice throw is modified by the difference between the AT and DEF values, and I am going to use the Spearhead values ones (having corrected the +1 bias for being German). they have similar differentials to NT, and so now, it really is impossible for a Sherman to KO a Panther or Tiger from the front, although they may stun it. Multiple stuns on the same target now force a morale test, and if failed, the target is KO instead. Think the "bail" result in Flames of War. So you can get a Tiger with lots and lots of hits and hot dice.

Righto, to battle.

Here is the battlefield, somewhere in Ukraine in 1943 (I suspect in the vicinity of Tamarovka and the Vorshla valley). KG Sievers has fallen back to this village, hotly pursued by Russians. The Russians have 40 minutes to reduce the German morale to 0 by destroying four units.

The Russians are quite an interesting force, 6 x T34/76 and 4 x SMG tank riders. The tank riders have to stay mounted as long as possible and attempt to do the 'Panzerblitz assault' thing of charging, dismounting and the CCing the enemy. They are supported by a single fire mission with an observer. I'll treat these guys as average for morale purposes, so pin and stun recovery is on a 4+ 

KG Sievers has four x Panzergrenadiers (high firepower infantry), an HMG and 2 x Panthers. The latter are unreliable and break down on an 11+ after movement. There is also an entrenchment which provides cover in the open for one unit. In my head I think of all these units as Charles Grant style 1:3, so actually rifle platoons and and sections of 2-3 tanks and support weapons. The ground scale doesn't make much sense otherwise.

The Russians can come on from any direction except the German baseline, so a degree of all round defence is called for. Tanks can't enter building hexes unless on a road, and I don't see any roads, so the Panthers wedge themselves behind the BUA, protected from flank shots. Each tank is escorted by a PG section, one being dug in as I don't like the look of those fields to the west. The rest of the infantry are sited to cover the front with the HMG stacked with a rifle section to absorb hits. I'm hoping to use the MG for opportunity fire as MGs potentially have multiple OF shots, so a wide field of fire is required.

The Russians rather like the look of all the cover in the north so move on that way. This also allows them to make multi-hex moves as they are out of sight for much of the way, they only have to halt in LOS. Sadly the arty observer lags behind on foot and ends up stuck on the reverse slope of the hill, but I need him up high to get his observation bonus. I do like the way the terrain masking works in these rules, they are the complete opposite of Phil Sabins 'Fire and Movement' , but they allow for cunning use of terrain.

Sadly for the Red Army, the German opp fire is devastating. One tank rider is shot off pinned and a T34 is hit and burns. The HMG manages to get two shots off before ending its opp fire. I don't bother opp firing the infantry as they can just shoot normally in their turn.

Now they know where the Russian threat is coming from, the Germans redeploy their infantry. The two PG with targets manage to finish off the pinned tank riders and pin another. The  Panther and HMG remove their opp fire markers while the second Panther makes a move of three hexes (being masked by the village) out on to the flank. It then promptly breaks down! I've just realised it shouldn't have changed facing at the end of its move. Oh well.

The Russians and Germans continue to trade shots. More T34s go up in smoke, but one T34 manages to flank the immobilised Panthers and knock them out (frontally the best they can get is a stun). The new to hit/to kill system is working well and plays smoothly. I also manage to get the stonk on target on the MG position where it does absolutely no damage at all. Perhaps I should have rolled the stonk against each target in the hex? In any case, I'm not convinced the few wooden buildings of a typical Russian village provide much cover against artillery fire. I've already reworked the terrain effects so woods and fields don't provide cover vs indirect fires, so I'll differentiate between wood and stone buildings too.

The Russians do manage to pin some of the Germans with the MG, and one plucky SMG unit managed to stay unpinned long enough to even advance an entire hex towards the Germans! But generally the hail of German small arms fire precluded any advance and the remaining Panther picked off T34s one by one. The Panzergrenadier sections have as much firepower (3D6) as an HMG, albeit without the opp fire bonus, so can put up a real wall of lead against the Russian infantry. 

Finally the Russian force morale broke and they fell back towards their baseline. With only 14 minutes left on the clock, there wasn't a hope of breaking the Germans so I called it there.

That was a good run through and so far my changes all seemed to be working OK. It was quick enough to play that I thought I'd try another run through.

The Germans did the same setup, but this time the Russians went for a massed tank assault from the east. The artillery observer headed for the hill again, not sure if he should treated as on foot or motorised?  My thinking was that this direction was the minimum distance to cover, but at least still had some cover (woods, fields) for the tank riders.

The German HMG banged away with opp fire but missed.

To face the threat from this direction the Germans need a big redeployment. Some of the infantry shuffled around and the Panthers swung around the edge of the village, keeping their frontal arcs towards the Russians. Neither broke down this time. 

The Russians essentially pushed forwards in a big clump, trying to get some tank riders within CC distance of the HMG position. German small arms fire once again ripped into the Russian infantry and most of them were forced off their tanks, pinned. The two T34s on the baseline concentrated on the Panther to the left and managed to stun it, which was very helpful. Even more helpful was that it failed to recover. The other Panther picked off one of the lead T34s though. The Russians managed to drop (yet another) ineffective stonk on the church and massed T34 MG fire routed one of the German infantry (with a double 6).

At turn end I managed to roll a double! Some random events. The Russians got a free rally, and Germans a chance to move and fire one unit

I stupidly hadn't noticed that the right hand Panther now had its flank exposed to the the lead T34 (frontal arcs are 120 degrees in these rules) and it was duly hit and destroyed. With the other Panther still stunned and a free rally on one of my pinned infantry, it was time for a general advance, but a hail of lead  from opp firing German infantry just mowed the Russians down. The Germans used their move and fire event to bring up the last infantry unit to occupy the space of the dead one. The Russians were now very close to their break point.

The Panther became unstunned and knocked another T34 out, and by now there were no Russian infantry left so the remaining tanks began to back away as they had reached their force break level. In an amazing turnaround over two turns however, the Russian armour managed to hang on long enough to rout not one, but two German infantry with massed MG and HE fire with 3 minutes left on the game clock! The Russians had finally won!

I really enjoyed those games, they were very quick and decisive but with ample scope for a degree of tactical cunning. The new AT system worked very well too, and didn't feel like it added any great complexity. I think separating the damage effects from the to hit allowed for a richer range of results, and I much preferred the morale rating based unit recovery. It makes it so much easier to translate commercial scenarios into games if you can model some degree of troop quality, particularly scenarios from Crossfire or Fireball Forward where troop quality is the single most important factor.

I will have a bit of a think about artillery and some of the terrain mods, but otherwise I think that is ready to go into something a bit more ambitious as Scenario 4 is a lot bigger than this. I'm having lots of fun with this, so thanks Norm!