Played A135 Acts of Defiance as the defending Russians against Jeff Howell. For the benefit of those who have spent the last few years on Mars, this a late war scenario where a formidable German force comprised of a company of elite paratroopers backed up by a couple of platoons of 1st line Landsers is attacking a pretty decent assortment of mainly elite Russian defenders. Nothing too subtle about the German objective here; they have to eradicate all good order Russian units within a road perimeter on board 20. They are backed up by a nasty looking JagdPz IV with a 75LL gun and a 150mm assault gun. The Russians are supported by three pretty nifty T44s which have the somewhat odd combo of frontal hull armour of 18, an 85mm gun and a small target size{!). On the downside they have the mechanical reliability issues which those of us who use Russian armour on a regular basis know and hate. As if that were not enough to assist the defence, the Russians have an HIP observer directing 120mm artillery with plentiful ammunition.
But there's more! Down on the south side of the battle zone, the Russians will try to reinforce their beleaguered comrades with five 628s and a couple of 120mm assault guns. To do this, they need to cross a canal across one of two bridges. The Germans have a platoon of 838 engineers and a couple of Goliaths to try to hold off these guys.
The Russians have plenty of options when setting up the defence but I opted to defend the eastern side of the perimeter with most of my defending force.
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The HIP observer started on the first floor of 20DD5 with the intention of calling down death on any Germans that came down the Russian right flank. If all went well, an artillery mission centred around 20BB5 would eventually pulverise any Germans that were using that building as a jump off point for a final assault. The odd placement of squads in BB5 and DD6 is due to the fact that these are manhole locations and the Germans start the scenario with a HIP Hitler Youth HS and a Psk in the sewers that I forgot to mention earlier. I wanted to make it difficult for this to pop up anywhere in the vicinity of my AFVs.
Speaking of AFVs, they had an eventful time. One T44 survived a frontal hit by a Psk (don't often use these words!) but promptly failed its mechanical reliability check and eventually died at the hands of its own artillery as it rained down in 20CC3. Another managed to get behind the wall in 21Y9 to threaten both German AFVs further down the road and nailed the assault gun with an APCR shot before going down in close combat. The third took a critical hit from a PF followed by a dud. It then sailed across to the western side of the perimeter to help surround and break a stack led by the German 9-2 leader with the result that they were all doomed for failure to rout.
In any scenario that features a battery of 120mm artillery, the chances are that the availability or otherwise of that artillery is going to have a very major bearing on the final outcome. So it proved here. My observer gained radio contact on turn one and never lost it. He managed to call down three fire missions. The first was inaccurate but the direction of error took it to a hex adjacent to a German stack. The safest course for this stack would have been so stay in place since the observer couldn't see the base level of the SR or the stack. Jeff wasn't to know this however and the stack scattered into locations that the observer could see with predictably gory consequences. The second fire mission broke up a German assault group that formed in building CC2 while also taking out the immobilized T44 that I mentioned earlier.. The third mission landed an SR in BB5 in Russian turn four as originally planned and Jeff conceded at that point.
Overall, this is a fun scenario but much depends on how effectively the Russians can use their artillery. On this occasion, it couldn't have gone better for them.
